


Super Dark Times 2

by nervoussis



Series: Super Dark Times [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, BUT THE HAPPY TIMES ARE COMING, Depression, Dreams and Nightmares, Eating Disorders, Eventual Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Idiots in Love, Limbo, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Masturbation in Shower, Memory Loss, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Slow Burn-ish, Steve Harrington Loves Billy Hargrove, Steve goes through hell after Billy's death, Steve kinda gets off to pain, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:14:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25038319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nervoussis/pseuds/nervoussis
Summary: ~UNDER HIATUS!~“Poetry. Mostly,” She says in a rush. Steve can tell how hard this is for her, handing over the physical copy of Billy’s soul. “I think he always liked to write it, but it got a lot better once he met you.”They stare at each other for a minute and Steve’s arms go numb but it doesn’t matter. “Billy wrote this for me,” Steve rasps, his voice completely wrecked and dripping with sentiment like a leaky faucet.Max smiles at him, soft and warm. “He wrote a lot of things for you.” Like it’s easy and wrapped in a pretty package, or something.(Or) Billy starts appearing in Steve’s dreams and Steve will do anything to raise him from the dead.(All poems are from artist Richard Siken)
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Joyce Byers & Billy Hargrove, Joyce Byers & Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler
Series: Super Dark Times [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789465
Comments: 82
Kudos: 145





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where you try to cut yourself open and find the pieces, but your knife has disappeared

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I made this place for you, a kingdom where you could love me and explaining will get us nowhere. I was away. I don't know where, lying on the floor pretending I was dead. I wanted to hurt you but the victory was that I couldn't stomach it. 'we have swallowed him up,' they said, 'it's beautiful. it really is.' I had a dream about you. We were in the gold room where everyone finally gets what they want so I said 'what do you want, love?' and you said, 'kiss me.'  
> Here I am, leaving you clues.  
> I am singing now while Rome burns. We are all just trying to be holy. My applejack, my silent night, just mash your lips against me.  
> We are all moving forward. None of us can go back.”

Billy doesn’t remember what happened, exactly. Can’t push the edges of his mind beyond the confines of what was swallowed up and digested by the slouching beast in the night. He remembers barren fields and blood on his shoes, hundreds of voices pleading for a mercy that he had no power to deliver.

He gets hung up on that part of the story.

There used to be layers. Pieces of him that he held close to his chest. Hidden gems, silent voices on misty nights. Here and then...gone. But Billy loved those things. The pieces he kept to himself. 

He used to be so much. Some good, some evil. But there was harmony.

Those parts vanished when he became a slave to the mask. The villain. The shadow. Disappeared like they never even existed in the first place. He remembers weeping for those pieces, the ones lost to the current of time.

He remembers the bad moments. Begging his master to _let go_ , to have mercy. But, as in life, Billy was shown none. 

He was able to reclaim some of those pieces when it really mattered.

And then Billy was at Starcourt and then he heard Steve calling his name, love _almost_ being enough to save him and then--

Nothing.

Billy tries to let it go.


	2. The Witness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) things get worse before they get better
> 
> The song used in this chapter is:  
> Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For you by Stevie Nicks
> 
> This song will be used throughout the fic ;)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Eventually, something you love is going to be taken away and you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later it’s happening to you, you’re falling to the floor crying and you’ll think: ‘I’m falling to the floor crying’ but there’s an element of ridiculous to it. You knew it would happen and even worse, while you’re falling to the floor crying you’ll look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you’ll realize that you didn’t paint it very well.”

Steve knows Billy is dead. 

Can feel it in his _bones_ , rattling through his ribcage with every heaving breath. A sound escapes the dry tunnel of his throat, and then before he knows what’s happening his feet carry him forward. Away from Robin and the fireworks and toward the escalator. 

Down to him. To Billy. Moth to flame.

El has her arms around Max, is rocking the kid back and forth and Steve can’t feel anything.

He’s making noises that he doesn’t recognize, vision blurred by tears and there’s arms around his chest, holding him and pinning him in place and he just. Loses it.

Sinks to the floor. Somebody’s screaming and he realizes with a jolt that it’s him. Screaming and crawling across the floor to clutch at Billy’s arms. His hands, his face. Like he’s trying to memorize the way his skin feels, or something.

It’s all very dramatic. 

Like the first four seconds after the Titanic hit the iceberg. Steve feels absolutely ridiculous but he can’t seem to stop it or get a hold of himself. He just climbs on top of Billy and holds on like he’s a life preserver. Like he can somehow crawl inside his body. 

Steve feels ridiculous, completely insane and totally inappropriate.

But he can’t stop talking. Crying and whispering things and then he’s being hauled off the body even though his legs are flailing, kicking desperately because he can’t just leave Billy there, on the floor. 

He can’t leave Billy. Not again, _never again._

Steve’s screaming, spitting words into the air that he doesn’t mean and then Max has her arms around his waist and she’s hugging the air out of his lungs. She’s sobbing, crying so hard that her body _vibrates_ and Steve comes crashing back down to Earth.

Max. Oh my god, _Max._

He hugs her back. Crushes the kid to his chest and they sink to the floor together. A couple of over-dramatic losers crying over a mass murderer who really wasn’t all that great even _before_ the possession. 

Max looks into his eyes and they understand each other without having to say anything.

Billy was an asshole. He was broken and violent and _lost,_ but it didn’t matter. They loved him. Loved him when he was mean, when he was sweet. Cared for him even when it hurt to care so much and Steve will love Billy until the goddamn _wheels fall off._

They may be the only people in the world who do, but it doesn’t matter.

They stay like that until people come and take the body away.

\--

Steve finds himself in bed, four or five blankets piled on top of him and an icepack on his forehead. Nancy and Jonathan are (somehow?) asleep on his bedroom floor and he can’t bring himself to close his eyes, even for a second.

Doesn’t think he’ll ever sleep again for as long as he lives. 

And, not to be dramatic, but he hopes that isn’t long. 

Every time he blinks all he can see is Billy’s smile. The way his eyes lit up on the court, the curly blonde halo of hair that Steve _swore_ concealed a pair of horns. Billy’s voice echoes through his heart, cascading down empty corridors and burying itself in every crevice.

_You love her and it kills me._

Steve’s crying again. Doesn’t think he’ll ever stop. Will just be a pathetic, sad sack of shit with bags under his eyes for the rest of his life. He shifts on the mattress and hugs a pillow to his chest.

This isn’t too different from how he’d slept the night after Billy called things off. Lights on, blankets pulled around him to ward off the cold feeling that he’d never be happy again. The only difference is now Steve won’t see Billy at school. Or around town.

He won’t get to sneak hidden glances to fill the hole in his stomach. 

Billy’s _gone_ , for real this time, and Steve will never see him again.

He’s on his own. And yeah. It’s too much.

Steve hikes himself into a sitting position because it’s getting hard to breathe, like that time in the sixth grade when he had bronchitis and Nancy took care of him. This time’s no different.

Suddenly the bed dips under her weight and her hands are in his hair, brushing down his neck. “Breathe, Steve,” Her voice is soft, firm. “In and out, come on.” So he tries to mimic her movements _in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four._

But it just makes it worse because Billy’s gone. He’s _gone_. 

Steve sputters and coughs as Jonathan appears with a glass of water. He tries to calm his breathing, just enough to force water down his throat but it’s no use.

He stumbles out of the bed and into the hallway. Makes it halfway down the stairs and then collapses like a sack of potatoes. Steve feels arms around him, holding him and rocking him back and forth. 

“Hey, it’s okay, you’re alright,” Jonathan this time. “It’s okay. We’re here, we’re gonna get through this.” His voice is raspy and soft and Steve just kinda melts into it for a second. But then Jonathan’s crying too and it makes everything feel better, all of a sudden.

Like he isn’t the only one in the world who misses Billy Hargrove.

They stay like that for a while. Steve sputtering, mouth moving like it’s trying to form words but not quite getting there. Jonathan nodding and saying things back, things like, “He loved you, Steve. He’ll always be with you.”

And before Steve knows it the sun is rising and he’s back in bed, staring at the ceiling while Nancy and Jonathan cook breakfast. He won’t be able to eat, he already knows it, but he’s grateful for their help.

It’s still summer. Still warm and bright and everyday is chalked full of turquoise skies. Steve pulls the blankets up to his chin and stares up at the puffy pink clouds, reminded instantly of those two weeks back in November. Of Billy and his peachy skin, his baby blue eyes and red lips.

He drifts off into an uneasy sleep, the sound of Billy’s voice in his head keeping the monsters at bay.

\--

So life reverts back to “normal.”

Starcourt is closed for good once July gives way to August and Steve is almost bored because life continues on. No one talks about Billy anymore.

And Grief is a strange thing. There are moments where he’ll be doing something mundane like vacuuming the stairs and his brain will convulse and freeze and he’ll be transported to the floor, to clutching at Billy’s slime covered face and it’s like time just _stops._ And Steve can’t breathe, he’ll just have to plant himself on the ground and wait for the panic to give way to emptiness.

So, life goes on, and no one talks about Billy.

Not even Max. Steve calls every couple of days, tries to let her know he’s here. That he isn’t going anywhere and hasn’t forgotten. That he’ll probably be stuck in a time loop, reliving July 4th over and over again even though he leaves that part out.

It’s almost boring, the amber haze that seems to hang over everything.

And it’s like this; Steve has stopped eating. Not on purpose, just isn’t hungry anymore and when he does eat he can’t keep the shit down. Joyce shows up once a week with a casserole and at first it was awkward, having someone else in the house with him, but eventually they form a kind of messed up therapy group.

Hopper and Billy, no one talks about them for a long time but then suddenly they do.

“Have you been sleeping?” Joyce asks, again, because _of course_ he hasn’t and he doesn’t have to say it because, honestly, neither has she.

Steve forces a spoonful of casserole down his throat. “If I could like, cut my eyelids off or something I would.” He says, and Ms. Byers just nods. 

They sit in silence for a while, pretending to eat and then Joyce touches his arm and says, “You have to get out of the house once in a while, kiddo.” Like it’s that simple. Like Steve can just pack his grief away in a box and bury it in the ground or something.

Grief. Steve wonders what stage he’s on now.

“Robin calls pretty much everyday, wants to job hunt together.”

“That’s great,” Joyce smiles but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “A job could be good, _Robin_ could be good, right? Friendship?”

Steve nods absentmindedly, focuses on trying to keep his meal down.

They lapse into silence again and he thinks about it, having to work again. Going in at eight and plastering on a smile and pretending like everything’s _okay_ , and to be honest the thought makes him want to scream. Tear his hair out, punch a wall. 

He wonders when he became so much like Billy.

“I dream about him every night,” Steve’s mouth says, “But it’s not good stuff.” 

Joyce touches his arm again, light as a feather. “What do you mean?”

Steve clenches his fists, tugs at his knees until they slam against his chest and he’s rocking back and forth like a buoy in the ocean. “I thought it would be good stuff. Like he’s at peace and I see him walking into a pool of light or something but it’s. Not. Like that, it’s. Twisted.”

“Twisted? How?”

“Sometimes it’s that night. Over and over again, fireworks and bright colors and heat.” Steve’s forehead is sweating. That’s new. “But then, like, _sometimes_ it’s November. And he’s hitting me, breaking every bone in my body and all I can do is just tell him I love him.”

Steve feels tears sliding down his cheeks and gathering under his chin. Joyce is staring at him with kind, worried eyes and he can’t bring himself to look back for too long. 

“I should have. Should have just _told him,”_ He wines, and just like that his grief swallows him whole.

Joyce puts her arms around him and rocks him back and forth. This is how it works now. Steve will be with his family, hanging with the kids or something and out of nowhere he’ll start crying and they’ll rock him back and forth.

It’s become ritualistic, just another part of knowing Steve Harrington. They’re all trying to find the pieces and glue them back together. He lets himself be rocked, Ms. Byers patting her fingers through his hair, and wishes he could do more to let the glue dry.

\--

At some point Steve falls asleep. It’s not restful and he wakes up screaming, covered in sweat and reaching for the bat he keeps under his bed but then his vision focuses and he’s on the couch. 

Joyce is gone and half the lights are turned off.

It’s still nighttime, dark and quiet so Steve turns on the T.V., just to have the sound of other people in the house. The floorboards creak under his shoes as he makes his way to the kitchen. He fills a glass full of water and drinks it while staring out at the street.

The lampposts create pools of light, like little stepping stones into the past and Steve remembers the first night Billy had really let the mask fall away. How he’d been so funny, vulnerable. So gentle and endearing until he _wasn’t_ and had punched Steve right across the face. But that was Billy.

Steve finishes his water and opens the fridge, pulls out a beer because he can never get his forty minutes of sleep without one.

Suddenly the phone rings and he jumps three feet into the air. “Shit,” The receiver burns a hole in his hand. “Yeah, whatever you’re selling, I’m not interested, okay?”

“Believe me, I’m selling what you need.” Robin.

Steve leans against the wall. “Jesus, do you realize what time it is?”

His friend laughs, breathy and quiet. “Do you? And it’s not like it really matters, Dingus. I knew you’d be awake.” 

He rolls his eyes and checks the clock on the wall. _2:56._ Steve leans back into the phone and says, “In the interest of saving time…?” And Robin laughs again. He relishes the way it makes the edges of his heart hurt a little less. Not much, but it’s something.

“Tomorrow. There are two positions open at the video store and we’re getting them.”

Steve groans. “ _Videos?_ Look, I’m not really much of a connoisseur of fine art, or whatever,” He takes a swig of beer, wipes a hand across his mouth. “I mean, can’t we just sling burgers or something?”

“Harrington, you’re selling yourself short,” Robin yawns and Steve feels bad about keeping her up even though _she_ called _him._ “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

He considers this. “Listen, I don’t know if I’m really _ready_ for--”

“Keith’s the manager. Literally the _most_ unhappy person on the planet.” Robin’s voice softens, just a little. “You don’t have to smile if you don’t feel like it. We could get that in writing.”

Steve stares out the window again. Life goes on, time presses forward. No matter how you cut it, Billy is gone. Never coming back. Steve wills his hands to stop shaking. Then, softly;

“I need to pick up _Fright Night_ for Dustin anyway--”

Robin squeals. Really, _screams_ in his ear like a child on Christmas and somehow pulls the first real laugh out of Steve’s guts in over a month. He holds the phone away from his head as Robin yells, “Okay so you’ll pick me up? Tomorrow at 10:30?” 

Steve shakes his head. “Stop being so hyper, go the fuck to sleep.” And hangs up the phone.

He stands at the window for a minute longer, smiling like a dufus before reality comes crashing down again. He’s alone. Through the window the lampposts flicker, one after the other down the line and Steve’s suddenly exhausted. Can barely stand.

He opens the cabinet above the stove and pulls out his sleeping pills. Military grade shit from Dr. Lawinksi (that still don’t work, somehow) and downs three of them with another swig of beer.

He stumbles through the house, back to the living room where he punches off the T.V. and flips on the cassette player. Steve settles into the couch, arm slung over his eyes as Stevie Nicks sings him to sleep.

_Has anyone ever written anything for you?_

_In all your darkest hours....have you ever heard me sing?_

_\--_

**Steve’s on a beach. Shoes dunked haplessly in the waves that lap the shore.**

**There’s light everywhere; the sun is shining so brightly that he has to stick a hand over his head like a dweeb, just to get a better look at his surroundings.**

**Yep, definitely a beach.**

**He takes a tentative step forward, just to get his Nike’s out of the goddamn water, and hears a voice. Sweet and soft and deep, cascading over the rolling hills of white sand.**

**_You know I’d rather be alone_ **

**_Than be without you, don’t you know…_ **

**He knows this song. These words, he’s heard them before but he can’t quite put his finger on it. Steve is pulled toward the sound, floating on clouds because he knows the voice, too. Knows it like the back of his hand.**

**_“And the rain falls down,_ _t_** **_here’s no pain and there’s no doubt.”_ **

**His feet stumble awkwardly in the sand, a midwestern boy to the core. Steve picks up the speed as something appears in the distance. A little shack on the beach, no windows and no doors.**

**Sheer fabric floats on the gentle breeze and it’s the color of turquoise skies.**

**Steve’s stomach drops to the ground.**

**_“Has anyone ever given anything to you?_ _I_** **_n all your darkest sorrows, did you ever give it back?”_ **

**He rounds the corner and the voice grows louder. Someone is over here, singing softly, blond curls bent over a surfboard.**

**The man is wearing a kimono and swim trunks. His hands move expertly around the curve of the board, smearing wax and buffing it down to shine like fallen stars. His hands are calloused and dirty and Steve would know those hands** **_anywhere._ **

**_“I have given that to you…_ _I_** **_f it’s all I ever do, this is your--”_ **

**“Billy?” Steve’s voice jumps out of his throat, hardly more than a whisper. He doubts Billy even hears it but then he looks up and smiles.**

**Steve’s heart splits in two.**

  
  



	3. Black Planet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) nothing but you: eat, sleep wake.
> 
> The Song/ Album mentioned in this chapter is:  
> "First and Last and Always" by The Sisters of Mercy.
> 
> (Because yes. Just like myself, in this universe Steve and Robin listen to and deeply enjoy goth music together)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "They want you to love the whole damn world but you won't do it. You want it narrowed down to that one fleshy man in the bathtub who knows what to do with his body, with his hands. It should follow, you know this, like the panels of a comic strip.  
> We should be belted in but you can't get beyond your skin, and they're trying to drive you into the ground to see if anything walks away."

When Steve finally comes to it takes him a few minutes to remember how to breathe. Every morning he’s hot on the trail of a new and terrifying nightmare, and every morning it takes the steely light of the dawn to remind him that those times are over. To snap him out of it.

It doesn’t stop the aftershock, though.

Steve leans over and throws up in the bin that lives under the coffee table, like he does _every morning,_ and fumbles for the glass of water he knows is there. Practiced, prepared.

It’s been an uphill battle. As it turns out, learning how to stave off extraordinary grief rather than just letting it drive you into the ground is fucking hard. Excruciating, and he still hasn’t mastered the intricacies. 

Steve stands slowly and lights a cigarette because, yeah, he’s smoking again. He takes a long drag and stumbles into the kitchen, onto the next thing on his list. Eat, drink, sleep, wake. Boring and pointless. Steve tries, though, he does. He drives the kids around and runs errands for Ms. Byers. Does what he can to feel useful, whole. But the thing is; it doesn’t work. 

Joyce says he should wake up and have two glasses of water, right away, especially if he can’t keep any food down. 

Which is every _fucking_ morning. 

So, it becomes another step in the ritual on his way to healing. On his way to forgetting Billy. And he hates it.

He’s gotten better with time, he thinks. More malleable.

At first he had been combative. At first he’d tried to hide his grief. Going to college parties and making a complete ass of himself just so people could laugh at his expense. So they could kick him down and make him feel pathetic. 

And, if he’s being honest, he deserves every second of misery for letting the shadows take Billy. For not realizing something was wrong. Steve had to pay.

So he stopped eating entirely and had felt pretty damn good about himself, for a while. Like wasting away would somehow bring Billy back to life. The gnaw of hunger in his organs replaced feeling. He didn't need anything else because could _feel_ Billy, then. Inside his body, breathing with every pang and suddenly it was like he was alive again.

It started to feel like maybe Steve was God or something.

But then one afternoon he was with Dustin and toothless asked about Billy. If Steve missed him, if he _loved_ him, like it was obvious if you knew where to look.

Like the whole time Steve had been wearing his feelings for the whole world to see. And he'd panicked. Laughed it off, made some cruel joke about it because that's just what Steve does when he's backed into a corner.

Punch back.

For so long Billy had been a secret that only Nancy knew about. A sin that Steve was determined to take to his grave. But the thing is; nobody can pull one over on Dustin. 

_Your death won’t bring him_ _back_. That’s what he’d said. As it turns out, Henderson can be wise when Steve actually lets him lead, and it's infuriating.

So that’s what Steve tells himself every morning. Live, for Billy, and try to get through it. Steve opens the refrigerator and grabs the mug of coffee he keeps hidden in the back for mornings like this. Cold and wet and dreary ones that make his teeth rattle.  
  
He pops the Mug into the microwave and looks out the window, rubbing at his shoulders to stay warm. 

It’s raining, because _of course_ it is, and for a moment Steve allows himself to relax. To be grateful.

Instead of looking out and seeing a world draped in Billy’s amber blush, topped by a sky the color of his eyes like usual, he gets a moment to himself. To reset.

_Huh._

He decides to take a shower.

Steve pads down the hallway and peels off his clothes. The steam burns his skin but he relaxes into it, lets his head loll back and shift from side to side. The sound of water against tile takes him back to the locker room. To basketball practice and the sound of rubber on the gym floor.

He closes his eyes and sees Billy’s chest. The slope of his neck, the curve of his upper lip. He had been so indescribably beautiful. So rugged and bronze and perfect. It makes Steve’s heart ache with desire, the memory of his dewy skin.

Steve rubs a soapy hand through his hair and sighs. 

Before Billy he had never known guys could be pretty like that. Angelic. With blond hair and swollen lips and cut muscles. Billy even looked beautiful covered in blood. Even covered in Steve’s. _Fuck,_ especially then-

Steve’s dick twitches once.

So, okay, it’s not like there’s a part of his life that has been left untouched by July 4th, but this is a sensitive area. Really sensitive, like freshly peeled skin. 

Steve usually takes thirty seconds to shower because as much as he _wants,_ as often as he’s done it in the past, hidden away in secret places with the memory of Billy’s lips on his skin, he hasn’t been able to do it since that day.

It just doesn’t feel right, jacking off to his dead-almost-enemy-turned-lover. 

Not a good look, or something.

But then Steve is overwhelmed by the smell of sea spray. He’d looked so _alive_ in the dream _._ Grimy hands on a curved surfboard, blood under his nails. He’d looked up and smiled and just the memory of it makes Steve choke. Not quite a moan, not quite a sob. It’s something darker.

Billy’s smile. That’s what he loves the most.

And then Steve feels him everywhere, all at once. Hears his voice in the rush of blood like he’s been here all along and Steve, he just, _wants._

Needs.

So he looks over his shoulder nervously and somehow that makes it worse, like he's an inconvenience that Steve's ashamed of. Like in time Billy will be reduced to just another ‘something I did once.’

That thought makes up his mind for him.

Steve turns the temperature up, wincing as the water chars his skin. He takes a deep, nervous breath and slides a shaking hand up and down the length of his cock. Just once.

And _fuck_ it’s definitely been a long eight weeks because his eyes slip closed with a slow, syrupy moan. He sounds like an absolute mess but it doesn’t matter. 

All he can see is Billy. Steve jerks his wrist harder. 

Billy on the beach. In the gym. Running on the track with strong legs pounding against asphalt. Billy at the Halloween party. Billy with the reflection of the pool on his cheek. Billy’s hands. Billy’s _fists._

Steve rolls his wrist every time he rounds the head and his hips buck involuntarily. He picks up the speed a little, just enough that his breath hitches, and leans back against the wall to let the steamy water lick down his thighs.

It hurts but he would do anything for it. He likes the pain. Steve smacks his head against the tile, winces but keeps going, kicks up the speed again.

Billy’s laugh. 

His head bent over a book. The taste of his mouth; Marlboro reds and vanilla. Billy’s _mouth_. His tears. His face clouded with anger, his _fists,_ covered in Steve’s blood.

He leans forward with a moan and just sort of, mashes his head into the wall because his knees are shaking. Steve clenches his eyes shut as his hands reach a fever pitch.

Billy’s stomach, bruised and broken and perfect. The snap of his waistband. Billy’s fists in Steve’s shirt and his _dick._ Pink and thick and _perfect…_

Steve comes to the memory of Billy stomping on his chest. 

He comes so hard that he slumps to the floor in a crescendo of ridiculous moans and thinks maybe he should unpack why pain gets him off so much. But it doesn’t matter, because the lingering glow of Billy’s eyes hold no judgement.

Steve rinses off and steps out of the shower. As the cool tile of the bathroom floor hits his toes, Steve breathes deeply and, for just a moment, feels alive again.

\--

As it turns out, Robin wasn’t kidding about the job at the video store. 

He’s thirty minutes late to pick her up (classic Harrington) and speeds the whole way down Loch Nora like he’s trying to win a race or something. When he finally pulls up to her split-level at 10:59, Robin throws the door open with a sneer and climbs into the passenger seat.

“Hey, watch it,” Steve grumbles, but his heart isn’t in it when she tosses the new _Sisters of Mercy_ cassette across the median. He blinks at her. “This has been sold out everywhere for _months,_ how--”

“You’re late, Dingus.”

Steve shrugs his shoulders. “I think we both know it was a soft 10:30, right?”

“If those jobs get snagged by some lame-o, it’s your fault.” Robin rolls her eyes and hits the eject button on the stereo, _Madonna_ giving way to the opening chords of _First and Last and Always._ She sticks her feet on the dashboard. “Give me a cigarette.”

He frowns and digs around in the glovebox. “No one’s _that_ eager to work with Keith and his Cheeto farts, okay. Just, trust me on this one.” Steve’s fingers close around the pack. He lights one and takes the first inhale, just to be spiteful.

Robin taps her fingers to the beat. “Okay well, we’re the lame-o’s who get those Cheeto farts, so let’s get a move on already.” 

And Steve can follow orders so he puts the car in reverse and pulls onto High Street. 

They lapse into silence for a while, Robin singing along with Andrew Eldritch. And, not to be a fanboy or whatever, but she has a great voice. Clear and piercing and a little bit raspy. Like Nina Simone or someone. 

Robin always gets embarrassed (oh my god, I sound like shit) when Steve just listens. Like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. Andrew and Robin sing in unison and Steve likes it, okay? Sue him.

_First and last and always: to the end of the end of time_

_First and last and always: Mine._

Steve puffs on his cigarette and thinks, okay this guy sounds like Frankenstein. Not usually his style. Usually Steve’s car is equipped with his tried and true; _Hall and Oates, Madonna_ and _Elvis._ But since becoming friends with Buckley his taste has expanded like a goddamn balloon to include weird shit, too. 

Shit like _The Talking Heads_ and _Idol_ and Mr. Frankenstein here.

Billy would be proud. 

Suddenly Robin stops singing and points at the cigarette. “You gonna share that with me?” 

“What,” Steve stares at her with his forehead wrinkled. “And ruin your record deal? Fat chance.” He makes a big deal of blowing the smoke out his window. Like, ‘hey, I’m serious about the dangers of secondhand consumption!’

She laughs and snatches the cigarette from his lips anyway. “You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.”

And then it’s Steve’s turn to laugh but it doesn’t sound right. Too stringy or something, like his throat went a few rounds with the blender.

 _You’re an idiot,_ used to remind him of Nancy. Used to slice him open, but somewhere along the way she got replaced by Billy. Bronze skin and bloody knuckles. 

It fucking hurts, and Steve has to manually reboot his system to keep from breaking down. Ruining the light banter they have going.

Now, with Robin Buckley in his passenger seat, smoking his cigarettes and being the best friend he’s ever had fucking _ever,_ he allows himself to take comfort in the phrase for the first time in a while. 

Just a little. And as he leans over to hit rewind, Robin gapes at him with genuine surprise. “Wait, is Steve ‘the hair’ Harrington, in all his tweeny-pop glory, a _fan_ of the _Sisters of Mercy?”_

He snatches the cigarette back from her. “Nah, just a fan of Robin Buckley.” Her eyes go soft for half a second and Steve smirks. “But if you keep missing notes like that, I won’t be for long. Practice, you know?”

Robin smacks his shoulder. She regards him with narrowed eyes but there’s a smile in there somewhere. He winks at her and she cracks, laughter filling the car. “ _Such_ an idiot.”

And Steve swallows thickly. Maybe the people he loves most just know that about him.

\--

So, they get the jobs. _Hooray._

Keith makes a big deal about judging Steve’s three favorite movies, like an asshole, and Steve knows it’s all political. He was an asshole in high school, after all.

But Robin like, pulls the guy aside and works her lesbian magic or something? Because they both start on Monday. And as they stumble into Steve’s living room with rented copies of _Fright Night, Carrie_ and _Freaks,_ he feels happy. Excited.

“We have to up the ante if you want to keep this job, Steve-o,” Robin sets the tapes on the coffee table and reaches to untie her converse, twizzler dangling from her mouth. “Keith bought the hottie card for now but will soon figure out that you’re hopeless.”

He rolls his eyes and turns on the T.V. “Hey, I still have pull with ladies. He’ll get his chance to fuck it up just like the rest of us.” Steve focuses on switching the input.

“Not like you’d want any of the chicks anyway, right?” Robin pops another twizzler into her mouth, casual. 

And Steve’s blood freezes because they haven’t talked about it. Not like this. Robin is the one person in his life who doesn’t worry over him. Who doesn’t ask questions, who gives him normality. He’s not sure he’s ready for it to be over.

Steve sits on the couch and tries to look very interested in reading the back of _Freaks._ “1931, wow. Y’know, most young adults don’t enjoy the black and whites, but you--”

“Steve.” She says, and he nods because yeah. It’s all bullshit. “You can tell me.”

When he finally looks over her eyes are kind. Soft. He blinks away tears and tries to sound casual, too. “Listen, Robin. I--”

Suddenly the phone is ringing and they jump like a couple of sissies. Steve puts a hand over his neck. “Fuck, just. Gimme a second?” He asks, and Robin nods like _sure._

Steve lopes to the kitchen and yanks the receiver off the wall. “Whatever you’re selling, I don’t want it.” He says, but someone’s crying. Weeping into the phone with tinny, deep gasps and Steve instantly knows that sound. “Max? Maxine, what’s wrong, are you okay?”

She hiccups into the receiver but doesn’t say anything. Just keeps crying.

His body starts to vibrate and suddenly it’s July 4th again. He wraps the phone chord in his hands, leans against the wall to keep from falling over. “Anything you need, just tell me. I’m here.”

Steve drowns in silence for two minutes before her voice comes, small and devastated. “They’re cleaning out his room tomorrow.”

“ _What?”_ His vision tunnels. “It’s only been a month.”

Max makes a noise that cuts him open right down the middle. “I-I know, it’s like he never even existed.”

Steve feels the color drain from his face. When he finally speaks again his voice wobbles like it’s learning to ice skate or something. “Don’t say that, Max.” He pushes off the wall and runs a hand through his hair. Swallows. “Okay, honey. What time?”

She sniffles again. “What do you mean?”

Steve wipes desperately at his eyes and tries not to sound like a fucking mess. It doesn’t work. “What _time,_ Max. When are we packing up his stuff?”

Max starts to say a billion and one things. Crazy, pointless words like "Neil," and "die," as if Steve would miss this for anything. 

He cuts her off, sharper than intended. “You can’t keep me from him.” 

“Steve, you don’t have to help. I was going to pack away a box for you to keep--” She's crying again and so is Steve.

“What time.” He asks, like it’s that simple.

They sit in silence for a while, hogging the phone line and silently crying together like a couple of psychopaths. Steve isn’t afraid. In the living room he hears Robin shuffling back and forth, no doubt getting the answer to her question. Billy Hargrove, his first and last and always. Ha-ha.

Max takes a deep breath. “2:00. But, Steve--”

“I’ll be there.” 

The receiver clangs as he hangs up the phone. He isn’t afraid. Not of Neil, not his parents, or society. He pours a glass of water and prepares himself. Steve’s not afraid. 

Not of anything, anymore. There’s nothing left to lose.

  
  



	4. Malibu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where no one is holier than the rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "We groped for each other on the back stairs or in parked cars as the road around us grew glossy with ice and our breath softened the view through the glass already laced with frost, but more frequently I was finding myself sleepless, and he was running out of Lullabies.  
> But damn if there isn't anything sexier than a slender boy with a gun, a fast car, a bottle of pills."

By the time Steve makes it back into the living room (after a ten minute breakdown at the kitchen sink), Robin has taken up residence on the couch. She’s plowing through a box of Cosmic Brownies and channel surfing with hyperfocus, the picture of forced relaxation.

Steve plops down next to her and thinks, yeah she was totally eavesdropping on his conversation. 

But he can’t really bring himself to be upset when Robin hands him a brownie and doesn’t bring it up again.

This is why she’s his best friend.

They watch _Fright Night_ first, because Dustin called this morning and demanded to get it _tomorrow: noon at the latest._ And Steve's never been one for horror, especially not after the last year, but he loves it. Absolutely eats it up, like with a spoon, and by the time the credits roll he’s already added it to his “Favorite Movies Ever,” list.

By their second film Steve has decided that Robin is his favorite person to watch movies with. She knows everything about _everything,_ like how it was filmed and little factoids about the weird happenings on set. It's like free job training and by the time they're watching _Carrie,_ Steve makes it a point to ask dumb questions just so she'll keep talking about it.

Somewhere between the locker room scene and the one where Carrie breaks the mirror in the bathroom, Robin pulls out a joint and takes a huge pull.

No, _hey how are you._ Just lights it up and hands the thing to Steve. And, yeah, he’s pretty nervous about tomorrow so he takes two quick pulls and holds his hands up.

“One and done, that’s my motto.”

Robin smirks at him, says, “Oh, come on. You’ve been a flat tire for a while now, can’t we have a little fun?” and ticks the joint at him while he considers this. She is like, his favorite person to get high with too. So, Steve opens his mouth and inhales.

 _Carrie_ gets a little terrifying after that. 

Steve’s high. That’s the thing; he’s _really_ high and he's having a hard time with it. Everyone in the film looks thirty-five so that kind of takes him out of it for a minute. 

But then they dump the blood on Sissy Spacek and all he can think about is El. What he’d do if anyone ever tried to hurt her again. If the crotchety little shits at Hawkins Middle know she has a babysitter who carries a studded baseball bat in the trunk of his car. 

He knows how the world works. How people target those who are different and make them pay for it. Hell, he used to _be_ one of those people.

Steve eats another Cosmic Brownie because, fuck, he’s starving. “First time I saw this I thought it was so dumb,” he says around a glob of chocolate goo.

Robin throws a pillow at him. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

And he ignores her, as usual. “We _know_ a kid with superpowers. Like, would it kill them to show a little compassion?” Steve chomps down on another portion of his brownie and points at the T.V. “Like that guy, what’s the guy’s name?”

“The one with the perm?” She asks. And Steve nods like _keep up._ Robin squints her eyes, thoughtful They’re all red and droopy and that’s hilarious and Steve's laughing when she says, “Tommy, I think.” 

Steve pokes her eyelid and she bats his hand away. Unfazed. 

“Tommy,” He drawls as he licks his fingers. “Yeah. His friends were nice, maybe they could have accepted her. Made her feel less alone.”

Robin shrugs her shoulders. “I dunno. Seems like Carrie was kind of doomed to be that way. One might even say she got a little _Carrie-d away.”_ Robin rubs her arm against his and Steve frowns.

Dad jokes. Great. The credits start to roll and Robin hops off the couch because it’s her turn to switch the movie over. 

Steve leans his head back and asks, “You don’t think kindness can pull people out of that cave?” Just to see what she’ll say.

“I think people are born mostly good or mostly evil,” She bends her head over the V.C.R, sort of hides behind a lock of hair. “I mean, what’s friendship going to do? Convince Carrie that she isn’t justified in hating the world that shit on her?”

Steve thinks of El again. How those men had made her do bad things, kill people. How they basically raised her to be a weapon and how his kids had brought out her humanity. 

Robin settles into the sofa and starts _Freaks._ Their conversation dies with the overture.

As crazy as it sounds, Steve’s kids have turned him into a believer that family is made, and that everyone is essentially good. 

But he wonders, sometimes. Especially about himself. Like if the whole thing with Will hadn’t happened, if Steve hadn’t fallen in love with Nancy and helped a group of dorky twelve year old's save the world, would he have changed anyway? 

Like, was he always destined to grow or was it the result of something else? He isn’t sure.

But then Steve thinks about Billy.

Who, like El, was raised to create level ground. Neither of them were shown much kindness. Both grew up without healthy relationships, and each had turned out so vastly different from the other. Experience really is the bottom line, he thinks.

Steve peels the wrapper off another brownie and pushes at the corners of his mind until he's consumed by how beautifully _Freaks_ is filmed. 

He asks Robin about it ( _it’s called Film Noir, Steve)_ and he decides this is his favorite. Another winner.

Steve relaxes into the soft prattle of Robin's voice and thinks maybe, if he had gotten there sooner and swallowed his fear and just _loved the guy_ , that Billy could have turned out different. 

Maybe he could have loved and let himself be loved in return. Maybe he wouldn’t have been targeted by the Mind Flayer. Maybe he’d still be alive. 

But it doesn’t really matter. The past is gone and when all is said and all is done, he loves Billy exactly as he is.

\--

After Robin falls asleep on the couch Steve ends up planted in front of the kitchen window, staring at that spot in the street like it can somehow send him back through time.

Billy's tear stained face. His knuckles on Steve's cheek. That was the first night it happened, the first time he looked at Billy and started to feel warm things.

It’s getting a bit old, at this point, the way everything in his house has become tainted with memory; the loungers in the backyard, the living room, the kitchen. Even Steve’s bedroom is off limits these days. 

He’s all but moved into the family room permanently. His clothes live in the hall closet between two stacks of Christmas decorations, like Steve himself is merely an afterthought. A squatter in his own life.

He wonders what Joyce will say about that once it starts getting cold enough to wear a jacket to Casserole Therapy. 

Outside the window the lampposts flicker, one after the other, almost like an answer Steve never asked for.

_Strange._

He rubs listlessly at his neck and downs three sleeping pills with a swig of beer. Prepares his body for the trek upstairs. For the first sleep in his bedroom since that night.

He promised Dustin that he’d try it this week, even if it’s just once. And tonight seems as good a night as any; Robin’s crashed out on the couch so his options are slim. 

But the thing is, when he finally makes it upstairs the hallway is dark and deserted. In the pale moonlight his carpet has turned seafoam green, and Steve is immediately reminded of Billy’s hands on the surfboard.

He can do this.

Steve stops in front of his door and takes a few deep breaths; _in-two-three-four, out-two-three-four,_ before pushing against the handle like it’s trying to bite him.

His room looks exactly the same as always. 

Steve isn’t sure what he was expecting, really. Blood stained walls, a Demogorgon chained in the corner, the Russian terminator guy poised with Steve’s bat over his head. The usual stuff.

He’d been preparing himself for something. 

_Anything,_ really _,_ but not this. 

The place is neat and orderly, plaid sheets pulled over his mattress with sharp precision. The floorboards creak under his feet as he investigates. 

Steve feels like a stranger, like a guest or something in his own room. He surveys every nook and cranny like he’s visiting a museum and maybe he is.

So many important things happened in this place. Nancy and the night Barb went missing, his almost-perfect evening with Billy. Suddenly it’s too much and his stomach drops out from under him. Like he’s 600 feet off the ground and plummeting down to earth again.

Steve feels like he’s gonna hurl. 

But, he doesn’t feel _scared_ and that’s the important thing.

He wanders over to the lamp in the corner and pulls the thread, warmth spilling across his face like sunlight. The light flickers once and Steve can barely stand he’s so exhausted. 

So he sits on the bed and checks that his shoes are tied. Searches under the frame for his bat. Fills a cup of water and leaves it on the night stand.

Steve does a real good job of working his way down the list, makes sure he’s prepared for the aftermath of whatever new nightmare lies just on the other side of sleep, and closes his eyes.

It’s just part of his ritual. Eat, sleep, wake...

\--

**When Steve opens his eyes he’s standing ankle deep in saltwater, like last time. He knows immediately that he’s safe in the literal sense. No monsters and all that but his relief quickly gives way to fear.**

**It’s dark on the coast. Pitch black, like the entire world has been deleted and replaced with eternal night.**

**He looks around wildly, squints, tries in vain to spot any semblance of light on the shore.**

**No such luck.**

**All he can see is the dull surface of the water, stretching endlessly in every direction.**

**Steve marches forward into the darkness, despite all his baser instincts yelling at him to stay put, and groans as wet sand clumps together and works its way into his shoes. The shit nestles and grates between his toes.**

**_Perfect._ **

**He stoops to, like, take off his shoes or something. Thinks being barefoot is a better alternative to wet Nikes and cold toes.**

**As he stands again with his shoes trapped between his fingers, Steve can’t move. Because up ahead, crouched in the water in tattered levis and a bloody wife-beater sits Billy.**

**And he’s crying.**

**Holding his shoulders in his hands and** **_weeping._ ** **Rocking back and forth like Steve has done so often in the past. Before he can stop himself his feet slosh through the water as he closes the space between them.**

 **Steve is surprised when Billy doesn’t lift his head. He just sits there muttering to himself as Steve comes to a noisy stop in front of him. “It’s not my fault, it’s** **_not my fault,”_ **

**And okay, Steve hasn’t heard that voice in weeks.**

**_Why won’t he look at me?_ **

**Billy stares at the surface of the water like it holds a secret, some kind of hidden comfort. He raises a hand and wipes listlessly at his nose, whimpers in a way that breaks Steve’s heart in two.**

**He crouches down to catch at Bill’s eyes, “Can you hear me?” He says, and it must work, break through some sort of barrier because Billy looks around wildly.**

**Like he can hear a voice but he doesn’t know where it’s coming from.**

**Like they’re on opposite sides of a one-way glass.**

**“S-Steve?” Billy’s voice cracks like an old ceramic plate. “Where--Is it you?”**

**And Steve hasn’t heard that voice say his name in** **_months_ ** **so he can’t stop the embarrassing sob that crawls out of his throat.**

 **Steve inches forward, impossibly closer, until he’s a breath away from Billy’s face. His** **_gorgeous,_ ** **tear stained face. “I’m here. Baby, I’m here.”**

 **Billy puts his hands over his mouth in surprise and Steve feels a little bit better when he gets a sob in return. “It’s not my fault, it’s not my** **_fault--”_ **

**Steve’s heart catches on something and tears. “What’s not your fault, baby?”**

**“** ** _Please believe me, Steve,”_ ** **Billy howls like he’s in pain. Like the words are leaving scratch marks down his throat. "Why didn't you come sooner, I'm so scared."**

**Steve’s crying now, snot lapping over his face like he left the faucet on or something. "Y-you've been waiting? Billy, what are you--" He blinks, files his thoughts in a way that makes sense. First thing's first. He tries to remember all those times with Dustin and the Ham radio. “Where are you? Can you tell me what you see?”**

**But Billy just sobs harder. So Steve nods his head like, _okay, we'll start with something easier_** **.**

**“Do you remember how you got here?”**

**Billy shakes his head. “I just remember the kid.”**

**_Starcourt._ **

**They sit like that for a while, the silence so thick and dark that Steve begins to think they lost connection or something.**

**Billy scrubs a hand across his face. He** **looks around again, scanning the darkness with a horrified expression, like he's figured out the answer to a really tough problem.**

**Steve's breath hitches as Billy looks right into his eyes.**

**“Am I...Steve, am I dead?”**

**\--**

He jerks out of sleep like somebody hit the eject button, a sob dying on his lips. 

In the light from the window Steve can tell that it’s morning. But that can’t be right. He always wakes up just before dawn, it’s a part of his ritual. But when he reaches over and yanks the alarm clock off his desk, sure enough. _10:53._

“ _What the fuck,”_ Steve breathes. His head is pounding like a group of kids played volleyball with it while he was asleep. Coffee and pancakes. Steve needs them, like, yesterday.

From outside his window a blue-jay hits his high note, mid-song, and Steve resists the urge to throw a hardback at the bastard. _What is there to be so damn chipper about?_ He sits and lights a cigarette. Makes the executive decision to forgo his list, just for one day.

But when his toes hit the sun-warmed carpet of his bedroom floor Steve’s blood runs cold.

His Nike’s are off. Completely untied and sitting on his desk, a puddle of water darkening the soles. He lunges forward and snatches them up with shaking hands. Steve sleeps with his shoes on, double knotted just in case. On the off chance that shit will go sideways while he's sleeping and he'll need to come up swinging. 

_How did this happen?_

“Yo, Dingus--” 

Steve jumps three feet into the air, “Jesus _Christ,_ Robin, you trying to kill me?” He slaps a hand over his heart and stares at her peachy skin. “Did you take a shower or something?”

Robin shrugs her shoulders. “Yeah, I'm borrowing this t-shirt.”

“Okay, you can borrow whatever you want just. Knock, next time?”

She laughs like he’s trying to be funny. “Oh, and what could _you--_ Steve Harrington: Grandpa--be doing in here that you wouldn’t want me to see?”

“You’d be surprised,” He immediately thinks of yesterday. The shower, Billy everywhere and nowhere all at once. Steve puts his hands on his hips. “You hungry?”

And Robin makes a _face,_ like hell just froze over. “Y-you’re actually eating?” She says.

It sucks. Because Steve has been trying to get better. To eat the right amount and drink the right amount and take care of himself because _life goes on._ He tries to do better for his friends because they don't deserve to worry. To look at him the way Robin is right now, with sympathetic eyes.

Steve tries to stave off the shame that laps over his skin.

"Yeah, I'm fucking eating." He drops the Nike's back onto his desk, rubs his hands on his jeans and thinks _I need to get out of here._ "So, pancakes?"


	5. Road, River and Rail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) we can be like them
> 
> And remember that pink letter from part one? Ooooh PLOT POINTS!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Here is your name and here is the list and here are the things you left behind: A mark on the ground from pushing your chair back, your house keys, your underwear. Here are the drapes that your cat peed on and here is your cat and here is the bottle of champagne from that night when the world caught on fire.  
> We are trying to move forward but it's not the same anymore. It never was.  
> Here is the list and here are the names and here are the things you left behind. Leave the light on, I'll keep walking toward the sound of your voice."

Steve spends the rest of the morning worrying about Billy. 

Which is weird to think about. He’s felt empty, drowned, bruised, and buried pretty much everyday since July 4th, but never worried. At least not about Billy. Steve always figured that Max was the sole resident in that category these days, but he was wrong. 

_Steve, am I...Am I dead?_

He sits at the diner with Robin and watches her eat little breakfast sandwiches made from pancakes, hashbrowns and strips of bacon and it’s kind of ingenious. She talks with her mouth full, prattles on and on about all the movies they’re going to rent with their discount and Steve?

Steve does a fantastic job of bullshitting interest. Nodding and smiling at the right times, the picture of ease.

And he feels bad about it because Robin always has riveting shit to say, it’s like she plans her talking points or something. But Steve can’t help it.

He thinks about ordering some pancakes ( _Steve, come on, eat something)_ but doesn’t think he could keep them down even if he wanted to. Steve can’t focus on anything other than the gnaw of dread in the back of his throat as the memory of Billy looking through him tugs at his mind.

So, by the time Robin mentions needing to get home for “DnD with her _cool_ friends,” Steve throws a fifty on the table and tries not to seem too eager for a moment of solitude. 

Robin lifts a questioning eyebrow. “Shit, Harrington. If I had known you were so ready to get rid of me I would have walked home this morning.” _Busted._

Steve runs a hand through his hair and fumbles for an excuse. “I just don’t want you to be late for your, uh, campaign? Punctuality is, like _super_ um...hot?”

Robin blinks at him. “Okay first. Ew. And second, Dustin’s probably still asleep.”

“You guys have a campaign of only two people?” Steve attempts to make his voice open and non judgmental. He fails miserably.

“We do one-shots, okay?” Robin throws her napkin at him. “And you could, like, come if you want? All that lounging around your house in the dark can’t be good for your healing process.” She’s looking at him again with soft, worried eyes and droopy lips and Steve feels something flare to life in his stomach.

Anger. “Right because fighting monsters in some stupid imaginary world is such a welcome break from fighting monsters in our stupid _real lives_.”

Robin leans forward on her elbows. “You never hang out anymore, Steve. Sure, you swing by and spend like an hour or something at a time but it’s like you’re not _here_ with us. It’s like--”

“Like I died with him, I know.” Steve’s voice pitches in volume and he looks around the restaurant, grateful that no one’s listening in. “Jesus, Dustin already gave me that speech, alright? So just _drop it.”_

Robin’s chin quivers and Steve thinks this is it, he’s the shittiest person on Earth. He swallows thickly and _knows_ it’s true. All his friends are ready to drop him like day-old bread and he can't really blame them for it.

“Robin, I’m _exhausted.”_

And she nods her head, like she understands what he’s struggling through. 

“Steve, it hasn’t been very long,” When he finally musters the courage to look at her, Robin’s eyes are wet but there’s a gentle, sure smile on her lips. “Give yourself time.”

Grief. That shitty, messy thing.

“But what about you guys? I’m a piece of shit. I don’t want--” It’s like all the air has been sucked from the room. “Please don’t leave me.”

“We’re _family_ Harrington. None of us are going anywhere, we’re in it for the long hall, got it?”

Steve feels his lungs give way and he starts crying, big embarrassing sobs in a booth at Luckie’s Diner, at 11:30 in the morning like a fucking psychopath. The waitress brings over a glass of water and Steve feels ridiculous.

Obnoxious and comical and totally inappropriate but then Robin reaches across the space between them and grabs his hand, threads their fingers together.

She ducks her head until Steve gives in and looks back. Robin smiles gently. “Besides, you love him. What else can you be expected to do?”

For just a moment he feels like he can breathe again.

But then Robin nudges his foot under the table and says, “Besides eat. You could eat. Like, a triple cheese burger. Right now.” Her smile falters a little bit when Steve doesn’t react.

He scrubs a hand across his face. “One triple cheese burger? That’s the price of your forgiveness?” 

“It wouldn’t _completely_ make up for you being such a mopey asshole all the time, but it’s a start.” Robin says, and it makes sense. He deserves to grovel for a while.

“And what if I can’t keep it down? Will you still accept the payment?” 

She squints her eyes, sunlight turning her skin translucent as Robin holds out a menu. “Guess you’ll have to work for it, then.”

Steve nods with his whole body. Fair is fair.

And Luckies is world famous for their loaded fries so Steve gives in, like a dweeb. Snatches the menu and flips through it carefully, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

\--

He ends up sending the copy of _Fright Night_ out the passenger door with Robin after lunch, since she’ll see Henderson before he does. She presses _eject_ on the cassette player and pockets _First and Last and Always,_ Steve tries not to pout.

Because he kinda dug it, alright? Sue him.

“Woah, woah, maybe I wasn’t done with that one.” Robin laughs like he can’t be serious or something, but he is. “Leave it.”

She rolls her eyes at him, considering. “And why should I do that?”

“It might help me sleep,” Steve’s voice is small but he tries to hide it with indifference, puffs on his cigarette with thin lips. "I'm cleaning out his room, don't you think I'll need it later tonight?"

“Okay,” She says cautiously, “But if I lend it to you, you owe me another triple cheese burger.”

“Are you serious, Buckley?” Steve grumbles as Robin steals the cigarette from his mouth. “Can’t we just--I don’t know, be like those schmucks who just _do nice things_ for no reason?”

Robin throws the door to the Beemer open and says. “Nope. If you’re being serious about getting better you need to eat.”

She sucks the smoke down to its filter and throws it at him. “See you Monday, Dingus,” and then she’s gone. Steve’s smile drops from his face as Dustin's house disappears from view. 

Monday seems like an eternity from now. Three full days and three one hundred-year sleeps in a dark, empty house. Steve pulls onto High Street and lights another cigarette; his nerves are fried like a goddamn chicken leg just thinking about it.

But that’s the thing. He’s _used_ to being home by himself. Has maybe even grown to enjoy it these last few months because when he’s alone in the house Steve doesn’t have to pretend anymore.

When he’s alone he can let the grief crush him, and it’s addicting.

But then he feels bad about missing another weekend with the kids, and then Joyce bakes him an extra casserole to fill the time between meetings and _sure,_ it wouldn’t be hard to call up the party and invite them over for a movie night or something but…

Then he feels like phony. Disingenuous when he doesn’t really want to be there even after the effort is made. 

When all he really wants to do is, like, crawl into a cabinet and hide for thirty years. 

Steve glances at the clock on the dashboard; _1:07,_ and makes a U-turn to head toward Park Street. No matter how heavy his burden, today he has to show up for the people that matter. 

It’s his responsibility to make things as easy for Maxine as possible--fold boxes and pack things into those boxes and then move Billy’s life into storage, where he’ll be safe. He can do these things for the Hargroves; be a friend and backbone for the girl who was left behind.

As much as it kills him, he can live through this.

And then he can go home and get drunk.

\--

When Steve pulls to a stop on Cherry Street the first thing he notices is Neil isn’t home.

He’s driven by enough times in the middle of the night, drunk and angry and _devastated_ , to know what The Devil’s car looks like. It feels like a small win on his part--now he doesn’t have to explain how he knows Max and, more importantly, Billy.

But then he opens the car door, balancing a white box on his arm, and sees the Camaro parked under the side awning. Bright blue and prefect and _fixed,_ and it’s like Billy’s alive.

It’s like he’s _home,_ waiting in the living room. Steve stumbles forward like somebody pushed him. He climbs the dilapidated steps, raps on the screen door, _Pat, Pat, Pat,_ and wills his vision to stop going blurry with anticipation. Steve prepares himself to be let down because Billy? He isn’t here.

And sure enough, Max’s face emerges from the shadows. 

Her skin is pale and sallow and Steve can tell she’s been crying. It feels like another small win when she eyes the white box in his hands. 

“What’s that?” 

Steve holds the thing out like a dweeb, shoulder checking the door frame as Max steps back to let him in. “I, uh. Saw this, at _Vans?_ I’m not sure if it’s the right thing but. I don’t know, thought you’d like it.”

“You got me a present?” She says it like Steve just suggested they burn the house down. “Why?”

And he doesn’t have an answer for that, not really. So, he puts the box on the coffee table and shrugs his shoulders.

Max dips to her knees cautiously and yanks the lid off to reveal a brand new skateboard. The bottom is really psychedelic, all oranges and reds and like, _melting skulls_ and shit. Steve picked it out because the decal reminded him of Max and Billy.

All heat and fury and hidden affection.

And the skulls are that special shade of Hargrove-Mayfield blue. It’s fine. His hands start to sweat as Max inspects the board.

She stands on it experimentally, her head cocked to the side, and Steve is nervous.

He bought it on an impulse because today is going to be hard. For the both of them. And they needed a little bit of sunshine to weather the storm. 

Five minutes pass and Steve thinks, _okay she hates it,_ but then Max looks at him with the ghost of a smile on her lips.

“Do you, um,” He tries, like an idiot, “Is it lame?”

Max shrugs her shoulders again. “Nah, it’s fine,” She says, like it’s no big deal. But as she leads Steve through the house the board is clutched to her chest like a life-preserver.

And damn, if she isn’t Billy’s sister through and through.

\--

“Jesus Christ, how many shitty old books can one man _own,”_ Steve asks, wiping dust on his pants. “It’s like a private library, or something.” 

As it turns out they make easy work of packing away what was left behind. Steve quickly learns how neat Billy is because everything is organized by color and alphabet and shit.

By the time he fills the first box it’s obvious that Billy lived his life with this day in mind.

Like he was trying to make it easier for them.

Max looks up from her position by the closet and shrugs her shoulders, stares at the floor. “We used to share books.” She says.

And Steve feels like an asshole so he flips a book over and scans the back with forced interest. That earns him a smile and everything instantly feels better, less heavy. Max pops a cassette into the radio by the mirror, and the Scorpions start screaming.

It feels like Billy is here. 

They work their way around the room. Steve packs away the books (five boxes, for fucks-sake) and pretty soon it’s that time. Five seconds later the heavy shit is stacked in the garage and they’re left with the softgoods.

Clothes, and records and _Billy._ The stuff he used everyday.

Max sets aside a box for each of them to take what they want, and it feels like a huge responsibility. Like he should have thought more about it before coming here today. 

He grabs the cardboard box and looks around the room, electing to give Max first dibs. As it turns out she’s really only interested in a sweater, an ashtray, and a bunch of books. 

“His favorites,” She says when Steve raises an eyebrow. Max fills her box to the brim and shuffles down the hallway, leaving Steve alone in Billy’s room.

 _For privacy,_ she says, and then he’s crying. 

He knew it would happen at some point but the rush of emotion gives him the chance to touch everything. To lift a blanket to his nose, brush his fingertips across the mirror.

Steve feels so connected to Billy at this moment.

It’s not difficult to imagine him here. Posted up on the bed, getting ready in the morning, reading with sunlight catching his golden curls. What would he say if he could see Steve right now?

_Jesus, Harrington. Crying over a little spilled milk?_

The thought makes him laugh out loud, like a psychopath, and then he’s grabbing things. Items he feels like Billy misses, wherever he is. Namely;

His denim jacket. A bottle of cologne. The half-empty pack of cigarettes on the nightstand, the kind Billy likes. His hairbrush. A couple of cassette tapes--anything Billy would write down if he had a list of essentials.

Steve does one final sweep of the room, the box growing heavy in his arms, and spots a picture on the desk.

It’s a sweet moment frozen in time, probably Halloween. The cute little kid with blonde hair dressed as Yogi Bear _has_ to be Billy, and he’s looking up at a woman dressed like an angel with a content smile on his face.

Steve’s heart shudders painfully and he puts the picture in the box with care.

When he makes it into the living room again Max is sitting on the couch with her new skateboard in her lap, fiddling with the wheels like a professional. 

“Guess you won’t really need a board anymore,” He says, pointing vaguely when Max stares at him. “The Camaro, she’s all fixed up.”

Max bites the skin on her bottom lip. “Yeah, I convinced Neil to let me keep it.”

“Billy would be pissed,” He says, and they laugh together for a minute because it’s true. Max driving the Camaro is, like, comedy gold. Steve swallows at the lump in his throat. “Look, if you ever need anything, kid--”

“I know,” She says, and the look on her face warns him to let it be. _Just like Billy._ “Thanks.”

Steve smiles politely and turns to leave, the handle burning his palm like it’s on fire. He’s halfway to his car when Max lopes down the stairs after him.

“I almost forgot; this is for you.” She grinds to a stop and holds out a battered spiral notebook. 

“What is it?” He asks, shifting the box in his hands so he can grip the fuzzy edges. 

“Billy writes almost as much as he reads. Found it under his mattress last night. It helps to sleep in his room. Sometimes, uh--” Max pauses and then restarts, tries to keep her voice smooth and even.

It takes Steve a second to find his voice. “Writes? Billy writes--”

“Poetry. Mostly,” She says in a rush. Steve can tell how hard this is for her, handing over the physical copy of Billy’s soul. “I think he always liked to write it, but it got a lot better once he met you. Figured you should have it.”

They stare at each other for a minute and Steve’s arms go numb but it doesn’t matter. “Billy wrote this for me,” Steve rasps, his voice completely wrecked and dripping with sentiment like a leaky faucet. 

Max smiles at him, soft and warm. “He wrote a lot of things for you.” Like it’s easy and wrapped in a pretty package, or something. 

“What things,” Steve feels his chest rip open in bloody shards. “What else did he write?”

“A letter, once. But I don’t think he actually sent it,” Max smiles again and heads back to the house. “Probably too chicken shit.” And then she’s gone, the door slamming loudly behind her. 

It takes Steve’s body three minutes to figure out what to do next. How to get in his car and drive home and like, go on with the rest of his life.

Because he remembers that letter.

He remembers the day it came in the mail, hot in the wake of their first fight. Remembers staring at Billy across the cafeteria and willing his feet to move. To go talk to him, to make amends. 

But Steve had been so angry. Hurt and violent and _sad._ Furious at everyone, especially Billy Hargrove. So, when the letter came in the mail he shoved it in a drawer at the back of his desk and moved on. Tried to forget the whole thing. 

He wasted so much time being angry and now Billy is gone.

Steve never read the letter, and now he can’t get home fast enough.


	6. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where I cry over you and it's beginning to sound like a broken record.
> 
> The Song(s) Used in this Chapter Are:  
> "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You?" by Stevie Nicks  
> and  
> "Don't Fear the Reaper." by Blue Oyster Cult

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's a road movie, a double feature. Two boys striking out across America while desire, like a monster, crawls out from the lake. With all of us watching. With all of us wondering if these two boys will find a way to figure it out."

The envelope is pink. For some reason Steve’s dumb brain chose not to file _that_ away. Instead, his subconscious is chalk full of stupid shit. Stuff like belching competitions with Dustin and basketball plays and he curses himself for never wising up and opening it. For not somehow knowing that his time was limited, that Billy had something important to say.

Because it’s _pink_. Steve can't get over that detail.

And the paper smells vaguely like Billy’s cologne. Woody and sweet and fucking intoxicating. Steve treks down to the kitchen and cracks a beer. The barstool groans as under his weight as he searches his brain for the perfect way to read it.

Because this is _huge_. It’s _important,_ and he doesn’t want to treat this like any random mail day. This isn't a postcard from Aunt Marie or a catalogue from Dustin.

These are the last words Billy will ever say to him.

So, Steve takes a deep breath. Washes his hands, places the envelope up against the breadbox so they’re sat across from each other, awkward first date style.

_Fuck._

Steve drains the rest of his beer and then wipes the countertop down with bleach water, let’s it dry. 

He’s being ridiculous, he knows that, but this is important. He wants to keep the letter as pristine as possible, crisp and untouched. He’ll read it once and then put it in a fireproof safe, or something. Preserve Billy’s last words forever.

 _Okay, here goes nothing._ He sits on the barstool and grabs his letter opener. 

Steve doesn’t know what he was expecting. Notebook paper, maybe. Scratchy penciled handwriting, barely legible from how many times things were written and re-written. That’s what he himself would have sent, probably, as embarrassing as it is. No, actually he probably would have called. Left a voicemail or something equally impersonal. Because who even writes letters anymore?

But as his eyes take in the aesthetic of the page, Steve is grateful that Billy had enough foresight to recognize the importance of his message.

The paper itself is cardstock. All across the header sprawls of flowers, blue and green, dot the page. Little birds hover in mid-flight and everything about it reminds him of summer. The stationary is so pretty and gentle that Steve's head swims. 

Billy was made for poetry, he thinks. Built for romance and passion, and for a while all he can do is stare. Steve’s heart swells a little bit when he finally notices the handwriting.

He can’t bring himself to read yet. This is too important, he wants it to be perfect.

But then, like some sort of curse, Steve’s eyes focus on the words and his brain takes over. 

\--

_I don’t know what I’m supposed to say._

_I’m sorry. You were right. I'm an idiot--combinations and recipes for forgiveness. In all honesty you’d probably be okay with anything, b_ _ut that doesn’t stop me from obsessing over finding the right words. This is too important. I_ 'v _e written this letter thirty-five times because I want to get it right. You’re too important, Steve._

_I don’t know how it happened but your smile started scaring me into believing a lot of things about myself that I refused to let in. We, both of us, are just trying to be holy. I'll pay for what I did to you everyday for the rest of my life._

_I’m going out of my mind not seeing you. I understand why you need time, but please, talk to me. Just let me know you’re okay._

_Yours, Billy_

_\--_

It’s too much, all at once. Like drowning and falling and being shot right between the eyes as the floodgates in his mind give way. Steve started crying at some point while reading the letter, though he isn’t quite sure when, and now he can’t seem to shut it off.

He wasted so much time on anger. Being angry at Billy or thinking Billy was angry at him when in retrospect, everything they went through means nothing. 

All the bad stuff. The fights, Billy rejecting Steve, Steve rejecting Billy. None of it means anything in comparison to the impenetrable silence that licks through his veins.

He feels his heart flex once, twice, and then he’s bent over the kitchen sink gasping for breath as bile stings the back of his throat. Steve spends ten minutes throwing up, a new personal best.

And then suddenly he’s exhausted even though the clock on the wall says _7:30._

He wipes the vomit from his mouth and tries, unsuccessfully, to swallow a glass of water and three sleeping pills because to _hell_ with this shit. 

He’d take the nightmares over this feeling, this _emptiness,_ any day of the goddamn week. 

Steve vomits again. _Fuck. This. Shit._

So, he gives up and pours himself a glass of vodka sprite in an effort to soothe the tense muscles in his stomach. Steve downs the whole drink in one go, like a shot, his eyes screwing closed.

He pours another. 

And then another, and then one more for the trek to the living room. Halfway through his third drink he grabs the bottle and shuffles into the hallway.

Steve should have done something. It’s swallowing him whole.

For six months he could have had Billy by his side everyday. Could have kissed him, held him, been there in all the ways Steve wanted to be there. And even if that’s something Billy wouldn’t have wanted--if he didn’t want Steve--they still could have been friends. 

He pulls _First and Last and Always_ out of its sleeve and pops it into the cassette player. 

The opening chords lap sweetly at the hole in his chest. His ribs expanding and aching with every verse, Steve polishes off his fourth drink and collapses onto the couch because _this fucking sucks_ and he wants to forget the whole thing.

_I’m going out of my mind not seeing you._

That’s what Billy had said. 

Somewhere between _A Rock and A Hard Place_ and _Marian,_ Steve sinks to the floor and starts drinking straight from the bottle. His lips close around the spigot and suck at the bitter liquid like a baby in need of milk.

When he lowers the bottle things are...yeah, things are different.

Everything looks sharp. Like his brain was a dull pencil and the alcohol ground it to a point. Steve rubs a hand through his hair and drinks in the view; the pretty green walls of the livingroom and the plush carpet under his feet.

He is immediately transported to that night. The stitches. Steve should have laid Billy on the floor and kissed the shit out of him. He’d thought about it enough before then, too many times to count.

And his life is full of missed opportunities. So many mistakes that he’ll never forgive himself for. 

Steve is rubbing his fingers through the carpet, tears on his cheeks, when the stereo snaps off with a _click._

“What the fuck,” He murmurs as the world tips sideways. Steve lurches forward and presses a button experimentally. Nothing. “Let’s see here--”

He checks all the vitals. The prongs on the plug in, the chord and power supply. By the time he’s made sense of it (probably faulty wiring), Steve gives up.

Shrugs his shoulders and turns to search for the T.V. remote, just to have noise in the house. He’s yanking the cushions off the couch and digging his hands into the guts of it when the stereo snaps back on.

_Has anyone ever written anything for you?_

_In all your darkest hours, did you ever hear me sing?_

His heart drops out his ass. 

All around him the song is playing, vibrating through the soles of his shoes and pouring out his eyes. 

Steve’s hands start pawing along the shelves above the stereo in search of his Stevie Nicks cassette. He doesn’t remember putting it in the slot, but who’s to say these days.

 _Listen to me now, you know I’d rather be alone t_ _han be without you, don’t you know…_

His fingers close around the casing of _Rock A Little,_ and when he pops the lid off with shaking fingers the pink tape stares back at him.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathes lamely. 

He tries another button on the stereo-- _eject--_ and waits as his palms grow clammy. Zilch. And when he bends to look in the window, sure enough, Robin’s Sisters of Mercy cassette is playing a Stevie Nicks song. Because of course it is. 

Steve’s hand reaches for the extra bat under the couch.

_And the rain comes down, there’s no pain and there’s no doubt._

_You know it’s easy to say I believed in you, everyday…_

His feet shuffle the rest of his body around in slow, even circles as he survey’s the room. For as many times as he’s imagined this moment he never thought it would happen like this.

That he’d be drunk and crying on the floor, listening to Stevie Nicks when the world turned upside down again. Or maybe it was written in the stars.

He’s certainly handling it better this way.

Steve takes three tentative steps toward the stereo, bat clenched tightly in his fist. Every hair on his body stands on end as the song seems to grow louder with every passing second.

_If not for me than do it for the world._

_Has anyone ever written anything for you…_

He carefully extends his fingers toward the stereo, breath hitching in his throat, when the holster pops open. 

The world is swallowed by a thick and heavy silence.

Steve holds his breath. Lifts the bat over his head and peers around the room, suddenly on high alert. 

One. Two. Three. Four.

The seconds tick by in slow motion, and Steve feels the blood in his veins grow steely with anticipation. He’s almost _begging_ for something to happen, just so he can move _on_ already. Crack the bat over something’s skull and _fucking run._

He almost doesn’t hear it around the rush of blood in his ears.

Footsteps overhead.

Steve lowers his bat and sprints as quietly as he can across the room to his backpack. With daft, clumsy fingers he rips the zipper open.

“Scoops Troop, do you copy?” Nothing. 

Steve hears something fall to the floor upstairs. “I repeat: Harrington to Scoops Troop. Do you copy?”

He waits half a second before he runs to the kitchen to tear the receiver off the wall. Dustin’s number is tumbling from his brain when the music starts up again, this time coming from somewhere upstairs. 

_All our times have come, h_ _ere but now they're gone…_

Steve feels the color drain from his face. He drops the phone to the ground and lopes back to the foyer, snatches his keys off the table and then…Sea mist. Everywhere, choking down his throat and burning his eyes. 

_Seasons don’t fear the reaper._ _Nor do the wind, the sun and the rain…_

“Billy?” His voice comes out as rasp but the music only gets louder, like some kind of fucked up response. Steve can hear it like it’s coming from inside his own head. He takes his hand off the door knob. “Billy, is that you?”

 _We can be like them, come on baby, don’t fear the reaper. Baby, t_ _ake my hand…_

He lets his feet carry him forward, through the house and up the stairs. The bat grows heavy in his hand as the door to his bedroom sits open, pouring light onto the beige carpet. The color of fire.

_We’ll be able to fly. Come on baby_

_Don’t fear the reaper. Baby, I’m your man…_

Steve walks right to the center of his rug and stares. Every lamp is turned on, burning from every corner and crevice. 

He struggles to find his voice. “Billy,” Steve grips the bat even tighter. _Steady now._ “Baby, is that you? Are you--”

_Love of two is one, here but now they're gone_

_Came the last night of sadness and it was clear she couldn't go on…_

“Please,” Steve shudders as his voice gives way to something small and fragile. “I’m here, please just let me--Are you. Billy?”

Every inch of Steve’s body goes cold. 

He swings the bat high above his head as the light in the room grows brighter. Brighter and brighter until he can’t see anything, anymore. Until he’s surrounded by light and sound. 

_The curtains flew then he appeared, saying don't be afraid_

_Come on baby, and she had no fear…_

Steve feels the bat tumble through his fingers and clatter the floor. 

He’s exhausted. Can’t keep his eyes open or stand or _think._ Against his better judgement he has to lay down, feels the sensation tugging at his bone marrow and Steve is powerless to object. He crawls across the plaid quilt, syrupy slow and dreamy, until the covers drift over him like warm waves.

\--

**Steve knows where he is before his eyes snap open.**

**The crash of saltwater against the shore, kissing and caressing the skin of his ankles is familiar now, like an old friend. He lifts his eyes to the horizon and is greeted by brilliant color. Vibrant, clean.**

**He immediately reaches down to untie his shoes.**

**Billy is in here. Somewhere. Steve can feel it in his bones, like a sixth sense, though he isn’t entirely sure which Billy will meet him in this place--July 4th? November or Shirley Temple. He isn’t sure. The water splashes under his feet as Steve moves to land.**

**Stretched around him in every direction are blue skies and powdery beaches. All along the path little plumes of vegetation split through the soil in their thirst for sunlight, and Steve thinks this place is perfect. Right out of a wish.**

**Like he crashed through the clouds and ended up in California, or something.**

**Steve grinds to a stop as the tiny shack from before fades into focus. He hades his eyes with the hand not holding his shoes and sure enough, turquoise curtains float through the open door.**

**Okay, I can do this.** **Steve wills his feet to carry him forward and then he’s standing on the porch, rapping his knuckles against the driftwood shack.**

 **There’s a long stretch of silence where Steve almost turns around. Where nerves spring up in his stomach and swirl like angry storm clouds and he thinks** **this is fucking stupid. This is just a dream.**

**But then there’s the gentle rustle of someone turning the page in a book and Billy’s voice reaches him. Floating on the breeze like a promise.**

**“ ‘S open.”**

**Steve nearly bursts into tears. Like a goddamn volcano about to erupt, full of passion and unspoken words, he feels himself split open at the seams. His hand pulls the curtain back and Steve steps into the shadows.**

**Billy is sitting on a chair by the window, a paperback clutched in his hands. The early morning sunlight makes his skin shine like a polished surface, and the first thing Steve notices is how summer drapes itself over him like it’s desperate for his touch.**

**It makes Steve’s heart shiver and ache with something new and, yeah, completely excruciating.**

**Billy is beautiful. Stunning. His hair is either shorter or just, curlier, maybe. Blond ringlets fed by sea mist and sunlight, so healthy and defined and real. it’s just. Beautiful.**

**Steve grapples for oxygen, for an olive branch to pull his mind past the initial shock of Billy’s honeydew cheekbones and blue eyes.**

**Eyes that are prettier than a field of flowers. Lilacs on the surface of a pool. And he’s staring and Steve like he’s seen him somewhere before.**

**"Hi,” Billy says politely. There’s a smile there, tugging at the fullness of his upper lip. “Jesus, it’s about time you showed up.”**

**Like it’s that simple. Like Steve just stepped out to grab dinner and was thirty minutes late or something so the chicken got cold. It’s so familiar and casual and Steve.**

**Steve is an idiot. So he starts crying. Gasping and rubbing at his eyes and shaking like a leaf because Billy closes the distance between them until Steve can see the brush of summer freckles across his nose.**

**“I’ve been waiting for you,” Billy whispers, like it’s a secret or something. He lifts a hand, maybe to brush his fingers through the hair at the nape of Steve’s neck.**

**And the thing is; as much as he wants Billy to touch him...god, as much as he wants to wrap Billy in his arms and like, run away and hide under a rock together, Steve’s feet carry him backward without his permission. Away from Billy and his golden skin.**

**The look of pain on his lovers face is like acid in Steve’s belly.**

**“Don’t. Don’t touch me,” He rasps, “Please, I can’t. Billy, I can’t--”**

**“Steve,” Billy’s voice is soft. Firm. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m never going to hurt you again.” He takes another step forward and Steve feels like he’s going to throw up. “Come here.”**

**But Steve doesn’t move. Or breathe. His limbs seem to be frozen as Billy’s expression twists into something broken and fragile. He watches with bated breath.**

**Billy nods his head once. Twice.**

**He turns on his heel and retreats to the corner of the bungalow where a makeshift kitchen waits patiently. Steve can tell by the look of it that the area is well loved, and he can almost see Billy cooking breakfast there every morning.**

**Do dead people need to eat? Steve blinks as a wave of nausea claws through his stomach.**

**Billy opens cabinets, removing things seemingly at random until he emerges with a glass of whiskey in each hand. His eyes are soft when he says, “I don’t know about you, pretty boy, but I need a fucking drink.”**


	7. Apathy's Last Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) you are a fever I am learning to live with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You're on your back in your undershirt, a broken man on an ugly bedspread, staring at the water spots on the ceiling. You're waiting because you thought it would follow.  
> You thought there would be some logic, perhaps, something to pull it together, but here we are in the weeds again. In the bowels of the thing: Your world doesn't make sense."

**Steve is painfully, unrelentingly sober when the glass rubs against the palm of his hand.**

**Taking it from Billy while avoiding his fingers is like a phantom touch. It's not really anything but it's also everything, all at the same time. The surface is cool and round and sturdy so he gulps down its contents without second thought to quell the rising fever in his skin.**

**And fuck the whiskey burns his throat when he looks up to find Billy starting at him with glassy, huge eyes.**

**Like he wasn't expecting Steve to be able to drink what was in the cup and seeing Steve in this place, twitchy and pissing himself, is just as bizarre for Billy as it is for him.**

**This whole situation is weird.**

**But despite their shared experience Steve feels bad because he can tell how much this moment means to Billy. Can see every flash of yearning on his face and it’s foreign, the way that his features crack and give way to something wet and vulnerable without so much as a fight.**

**Billy’s a stranger.**

**It's like he died and ended up in this place and became a new person who doesn’t have anything to hide behind. No trauma, no monsters, no super dark shadows that creep in and leave him broken on the kitchen floor with all the air sucked from his lungs.**

**Even his face looks younger, peaceful. The muscles around his mouth are loose and smooth and Steve realizes the Billy he fell in love with, for all the parts of him, good and bad; That Billy doesn't exist anymore.**

**He’s gone.**

**It’s unnerving. Steve polishes off the rest of his whiskey and wishes Billy would stop looking at him with all that naked love and just sucker-punch him or something. Get back to normal.**

**“Do you want to sit down?” He asks, and Steve immediately shakes his head.**

**"No, I’ll uh. I'll Stand.”**

**Billy walks over to the patch of sunlight and sits carefully, one leg slung over the arm of the chair. He swishes the whiskey in his cup, eyebrows knitted together in a look of perpetual concentration.**

**Steve has the sudden urge to touch the skin between Billy's eyebrows with his lips.**

**Billy chuckles and then says, quietly. "I thought I'd never see you again, Steve."**

**And Steve doesn't know what to say, exactly, because he had thought the same. Had cried about it for months, read the letter, tried to move on.**

**So he just coughs and looks around the room. Tries to get his head to stop doing cartwheels and focus on something, anything. "Nice place you got here," He says lamely, and Billy stares at him like Steve just told him to fuck off.**

**"Thanks," Billy says gruffly, "I just kinda, woke up here."**

**"You don't remember what happened?"**

**Billy is quiet for a moment, the sound of the waves on the shore the only break in their unrelenting silence. When he finally speaks again his voice is raw. "I already told you. I just remember the kid."**

**So he remembers that night, too. The dark beach, the starless sky, wet Nike’s and dry sand.**

**Steve allows his eyes to flick in Billy's direction and his heart nearly breaks in half.**

**Billy's head is resting on the back of the chair, his throat exposed like a landing strip for grief. Under the rosy skin on his neck Steve can see his heartbeat.**

**And it’s like Billy’s alive.**

**Before Steve realizes it his feet carry him forward until he's crouched at Billy's knees, the whiskey glass clenched tightly in his hands.**

**His mouth takes off without him.**

**"I miss you, Billy," He says thickly. "Every day. It's...it's so fucking** **_hard_ ** **that I don't even--"**

**He reels as the blue of Billy's eyes sear into his own. "What are you talking about?"**

**Steve is reminded instantly of what it used to be like.**

**Sure, this is the first real conversation they've had in eight months even if it** **_is_ ** **a fucking dream, but Steve remembers.**

**You have to be careful, with Billy. Every conversation is a minefield, a trigger for his unrelenting anger.**

**He almost chokes on the relief that floods his chest.**

**It's good to know some things never change.**

**He considers telling Billy the truth. That he died on July 4th because he sacrificed himself to save one of Steve's kids, to save all of them. But something sharp and fragile in Billy's expression makes him bite his tongue.**

**He starts crying, because he's fucking** **_thought_ ** **about this.**

**What he would say if he could talk to Billy one last time. The words come pouring out of him like water from a broken dam.**

**Steve closes his eyes and focuses on the only part that matters.**

**"I'm sorry I wasted so much time. Nancy, she doesn't mean anything to me, Billy. Nobody means as much to me as you do and I'm.** **_Such_ ** **a fucking--"**

**His words are becoming slurred by the weight of his grief. Steve remembers that night. Remembers the monster tearing through Billy's chest like he was made of paper. Remembers wishing he had just said it, when he had the chance.**

**"I'm sorry I let fear drive for so long, I should have just. I should have just** **_told_ ** **you, Billy."**

**He sobs, loud and pathetic, as a pair of hands grip his shoulders.**

**Steve grapples at the skin on Billy's arms.**

**His eyes are still closed but he feels Billy's on his face, burning and searing into his expression, unpacking his words.**

**It's now or fucking never. Steve takes a deep breath,**

**"Billy, I--"**

**\--**

Steve is yanked out of sleep by the sound of someone banging on his front door, and he would be lying if he said that his first reaction isn’t to punch a hole in the fucking wall. 

“Goddamnit _,”_ He shouts.

Outside the window it’s still night time, darkness heavy and wet as the sound of rain taps against the roof. 

Whoever’s knocking on his door at--Steve leans over and reads the clock on his desk--4:30 in the _fucking_ morning is likely getting soaked.

Good. 

He pulls a pillow over his head and clenches his eyes, wills sleep to return, but the banging on the door only grows more frantic.

Steve sits up in bed and wipes at the trail of tears on his cheeks, furious. 

It takes him three seconds to lope down the stairs and throw the front door open.

Suddenly the entire Gang is stumbling through the house, tracking wet feet and mud all over his mom’s beige carpet.

They crowd around him, talking loudly and all at once, splitting into groups to fucking _check the perimeter_ or something and Steve is furious again. 

“Woah, woah, HEY!” He screams. No one is paying attention to him. 

He reels as Erica, Lucas and Max shuffle past him with huge duffle bags stocked full of Armageddon tools, clearly on their way to the living room. 

The H.A.M radio on Erica’s belt sizzle’s and cracks as Jonathan’s voice fills the foyer. “Jonathan to Scoops Troop, all clear out here. Over.”

Steve makes a noise like a pissed off duck.

Dustin pulls a tiny flashlight out of his pocket and shines it directly into Steve’s eyes, which makes him angrier, if that’s even possible.

Steve smacks the flashlight out of Dustin’s hand. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but why are you here and could you maybe, _leave_ and come back in the morning?”

“You called on the H.A.M, what the hell did you expect.” Henderson dives for his flashlight. “Now, man up and let me check your vitals, dumbass.”

Steve smacks it from his hand again. “Are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what time--” 

Now it’s Henderson’s turn to make a noise. “Steve, you look like shit, just _let me take your vitals_.”

From somewhere in the house the kids are setting things up. Making calls to El and Will, loudly and so, so _urgent_ like the world is ending, and then Nancy stomps through the door with a loaded gun on her hip, like a psycho, and Steve loses it.

Completely freaks out.

He smacks the flashlight from Dustin’s hand one more time and says, “Okay, everyone in the living room. _Now.”_

Henderson starts to protest but Steve just grabs the back of his shirt and hauls him forward, into the brightly lit den.

Fucking _everyone_ is here, save for Joyce and the others, and Steve is absolutely livid about all the phone calls he’s going to have to make in the morning. 

Their parents are probably worried sick.

Mike and Lucas have turned on the fireplace and are in the process of making the room _very_ hot so Steve shoves them out of the way and turns the thing off.

Steve claps his hands together, trying to get their attention. 

And they all turn to him like _he’s_ the crazy one. Like he’s lost his mind. Steve plants his hands on his hips.

“What the _hell_ are you all doing here? I mean seriously, it’s four in the morning and what, you thought it was a good idea to ride your bikes all the way across town in a rainstorm?” Steve makes a point to stare at each one individually, especially Nancy and Jonathan who are supposed to be _adults_ for Christ-sake. “Nobody thought to call?”

Dustin groans. “ _You_ called on the H.A.M--”

“Which is only supposed to be used for _emergencies--”_ Erica says accusingly.

“It sounded urgent, Steve. You sounded scared.” Nancy steps forward, puts her hand on Steve’s arm. “We aren’t going to take that chance.”

And he can see it written all over their faces, plain as day. The hole left behind by Hopper and Billy is parasitic. Death is eating them whole, saturating every facet of normal life and Steve can’t believe he thought he was the only one.

They’re worried sick about him.

Steve feels like an asshole. “Look, guys--”

A clap of thunder makes everything seem worse all of a sudden, darker. The sound of the rain and roof is like tiny hammers.

This is the moment. 

He could tell them about Billy. Come clean about his dreams and the cassette tapes and the lights in his room, but as he looks around at the faces of his friends, his family, Steve feels like he's already put them through enough. This is a burden he has to carry alone.

At least until he figures out what’s going on. Steve shakes his head.

“It was just a false alarm,” He says uneasily. “I thought I heard someone walking around upstairs, but when I went to check there was nobody there.”

Mike squints at him, ever the skeptic. “You heard _footsteps_ and you followed them?”

“Steve we’ve fought monsters, you should know better.” Max says, clearly disappointed.

The Gang starts talking all at once again, clearly on board with Mike’s theory that Steve’s a dumbass, and he is not in the mood to be picked at so he just nods his head aggressively.

“Alright, so everyone clean up this shit and go find something warm to wear.” He says, and they all stare at him. “You think I’m letting you ride home on your _bikes_ in this storm? Fat chance.”

And they just keep staring at him, which is starting to piss him off. 

Steve claps his hands together again. “My room, guys, chop chop. You’re not getting pneumonia on my watch, let’s go.”

As they all shuffle out of the room, single file like they’re in trouble or something, Steve is exhausted but he can’t stop the warm feeling coursing through his veins, heating him from the inside out.

It feels good to have everyone in his house again.

\--

If there’s one thing the Gang is good at it’s sharing the workload. 

Since Steve makes the executive decision that they’re all sleeping over Dustin organizes everyone into groups, ever the leader, so they can get settled faster. Steve’s pretty proud of him. Whatever. 

Jonathan and Mike are in charge of tracking down pillows and blankets. 

Steve and Nancy are making food.

Lucas, Max, and Erica are tasked with washing and drying all the wet clothes.

And by the time the sun starts to rise, everyone is dressed in Steve’s ratty sweatpants and Hawkins High t-shirts. They’re parked in the living room with full bellies and _Back to the Future_ playing quietly on the T.V. while they fall asleep one by one.

Until Steve is the last one awake.

He’s really starting to regret all the vodka he drank last night when the clock reads _7:30_ and he's got a headache that could split canyons.

Everyone is still sound asleep so Steve throws his blanket off and pads through the house, preparing for the hustle and bustle of morning with the Party. 

Steve goes to fold the last load of laundry and pops a few pizza’s in the oven on his way to the back room. If he’s learned anything over the last few years it’s these kids can eat, especially after a night of monster hunting.

Even fake monster hunting. They’re insane.

As the sun inches higher in the sky it’s obvious that Steve isn’t going to be able to sleep, even though he only got a few hours, so he brews a pot of coffee and jumps three feet into the air when Nancy pokes her head into the kitchen.

“Pizza and coffee is a weird combination,” She mutters, still bleary with sleep.

Steve pours two cups, adding plenty of sugar and cream to his. Nancy takes hers black, which he’s always admired.

See, people think Nancy’s a princess. A prissy little stuck up rich girl, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Like he told Robin, Nancy turned out to be pretty badass.

She takes the mug with a smile and they blow on the steam in comfortable, blissful silence.

Then, softly; “Steve, what’s going on?”

And he can’t look at her. Because if he looks into her eyes he’ll tell the truth, and there’s no sense in getting everyone riled up over nothing. Steve shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Come on, Steve,” She says, “I _know_ you. You barely said two words while we were cooking last night.”

The oven timer goes off and Steve puts in a second round of pizza’s because these kids are going to eat him out of house and home. It’s happened countless times before and he kind of loves it.

Steve’s got his head bent over the stove as he says, “What can I say, ran out of things to talk about a long time ago.”

When he turns around again Nancy has her arms folded across her chest. Her eyes are peering straight through him so Steve starts wiping the counters down, just for something to do. Just so she won’t see the cracks in his armour.

He jumps again when Nancy touches his shoulder. Her eyes are soft. “Steve, you look like you saw a ghost.”

And he tries to laugh because it’s _true_ , but how could she know that, which just makes it funnier. Nancy doesn’t laugh or smile, she just stares with sure, gentle eyes. 

“Wheeler, I’m fine.” He says with a flourish. “If I wasn’t you’d be the first person to know about it.” 

But they both know it isn’t true. Nancy hasn’t been his number one for a long time. 

She nods her head, sharp and aggressive. “So this doesn’t have anything to do with Billy?”

Steve steps back like Nancy slapped him. He folds his arms across his chest. “What would you know about him? Nancy, you didn’t even know him. None of you did.”

He isn’t in the mood to talk about this, not with her. Never with her. 

In a lot of ways he feels like he’s betraying Billy just by allowing her to look at him like that. Letting her touch his arm and worry about him and pretend she cares about his bullshit _grieving process._

“So that’s what this is about?” Nancy has that look on her face. He’s seen it twice before, once when he refused to go to the cops and another when Jonathan beat the shit out of him. “You feel like you’re the only person who has a right to ask questions?”

“What are you _talking_ about, Nancy?”

She clenches her teeth. “Everyone is worried about you, Steve. You don’t eat, you don’t call, you don’t--”

“Oh and, what, I’m supposed to hear the same speech over and over again everyday for the rest of my life and not get tired of it?” He gets a knife and starts slicing the first three pizzas in neat, even squares. “What happened to letting people work through shit in their own time, Jesus.”

Nancy is quiet for a minute and Steve feels like an asshole again. It’s become his default setting. 

“We’re your friends, Steve,” She whispers. “I’m your friend.”

He whirls on her, voice quiet and sharp. “Don’t pretend like this is about me.”

“What?” Nancy asks, eyes wide and shining with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

And just like that Steve is so over this bullshit. 

He tosses the knife on the counter. He’s tired, and he’s sad and he’s so _angry_.

“You don’t care that I’m grieving. None of you care that my heart is fucking _shattered_ and will probably never rebuild itself again. And I’m not talking about the bullshit you did to me, I’m talking about _real_ heartbreak.” Nancy flinches, clearly stung. Steve keeps going. “No, you’re all upset because I fell in love with Billy and he was the villain of your story.”

Nancy opens her mouth to speak. Fat fucking chance.

“You're all pissed off because Billy was the bad guy. He was broken and he was traumatized and violent and he wasn't supposed to be loved. Or missed. And I'm a constant reminder that we _failed,_ Nance. That we couldn't save everyone. You all turned your backs on him. I turned my back on him. We, all of us, we let him _die,_ Nance. We--” It’s getting very difficult to breathe, and as Steve’s eyes go fuzzy with tears Nancy’s anger morphs into concern.

She steps forward as if to hug him but Steve stumbles backward. “Don’t touch me, please. Don’t.”

“Steve.” Nancy says, “Please just _talk to me._ If you and I are such good friends we should be able to work through this. Talk about Billy, talk about treatment. You should be able to--”

“Treatment?” He spits.

And her face turns purple. Caught red handed.

Steve scrubs a hand across his mouth because of _course_ they would send Nancy in here to do their dirty work for them. 

He feels betrayed. “Yeah, and if you and I are such good _friends_ why didn’t you just tell me that’s what you were doing.”

Steve doesn’t wait for a response. He stumbles through the living room, not at all surprised to find the entire party wide awake, listening with stunned expressions on their faces.

He’s embarrassed. 

Steve stomps to the bathroom and slams the door. Succumbs to the tide of grief. He’s crying, weeping with dry sobs, as he turns on the shower and peels off his clothes.

Dustin’s knocking on the door, saying something but Steve doesn’t hear him over the rush in his ears. 

Because there, in the reflection from the mirror, the bare skin of Steve’s shoulders is red, blistered. Like he was burned or maybe branded. He reaches up a shaking hand and brushes his fingertips against the tender flesh. Doesn’t know what he’s expecting; pain, maybe. But there’s nothing.

Just emptiness. 

Steve leans into the mirror and tries to make out the pattern. His breath hitches in his throat as he recognizes, like a fist to his stomach, the gentle curve of a palm. The grip of ten fingers, five on each shoulder.

Billy’s handprints are seared into Steve’s skin.


	8. Colossus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where I tear the petals off of you to make you tell the truth.
> 
> I kind of have an idea to share what I was listening to when I wrote something so here goes:
> 
> Tonight, for your viewing pleasure may I suggest:  
> Petals, Reasons to be Beautiful, and Northern Star. All off Hole's third studio album, "Celebrity Skin."  
> Smoky with a slight aftertaste of vengeance and grief.  
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Every morning the maple leaves. Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big and little words all spelling out the same desire. All spelling out:  
> You will be alone always and then you will die in your best friend's arms."

So Steve showers with the water cranked as hot as it will go and tries to make sense of the situation. Tries to assess the facts.

Billy died and now he’s, like, haunting Steve’s dreams from beyond the grave? 

He can’t say he’s really all that surprised.

In a world where twelve year old girls have super powers and alternate dimensions crack through the ground beneath their feet and spill _shit_ all over the place like swelling rivers, it’s not a stretch to grasp at the possibility.

Though it’s kind of like grasping at smoke.

This time round there are no experts, no drawing boards or starting points for Steve to reference. No one opened the gate this time. No one called Billy through the veil with pathetic, drunken swan songs except for Steve Harrington: selfish dumbass, _idiot e_ xtraordinaire. 

No one else is to blame.

So, yeah. Steve isn’t surprised.

Disappointed, maybe. Crying rivers in front of the mirror in the bathroom, _maybe_. But not surprised. 

It’s just a lot. Heavy, his brain supplies, and he splashes cool water over his face in a last ditch effort to calm down. He tries to stop staring at the burns on his skin and convince himself to put his clothes back on and go face the others. 

But his limbs don’t move.

Steve can hear them like they’re right outside the door and, fuck, maybe they are. Dustin is speaking loudly with his words hitching up at the end in a way Steve’s never heard before. He realizes with a start that the kid’s angry. Furious.

Henderson is livid and he’s screaming at the voice whose answer is always clam and sweet.

Nancy. Dustin and Nancy Wheeler are fighting in Steve’s living room and all he can do is stand in his bathroom and listen, try to make out the words. He wonders when he became such an asshole.

Maybe he just _was_ one. Always. Maybe all that character growth was just a fever dream and Steve doesn’t have any friends or family and he’s still the lonely, fucked up King. 

Steve yanks his dirty clothes over his wet skin and rubs at the steam on the mirror.

He looks tired.

That’s all, just exhausted. His skin is sallow and pale and the hallows of his cheeks look sunken, like he hasn’t eaten in months. And he hasn’t. 

Full disclosure? Steve looks dead. And he hadn’t even realized it before.

Time to be honest.

Steve flings the door open and pads to the living room, heart thundering against his ribs. He settles into the hollow feeling that, in some sort of fucked up way, he got what he wanted. 

Steve is wasting away and Billy is alive in the Great Big Somewhere.

He stops dead in his tracks as the voices come together and form words. Dustin’s are lethal. Clipped.

Steve feels the hair raise on the back of his neck.

“I just. I don’t understand, so what? You want Steve in _rehab_ like he’s a goddamn--”

“Not rehab. _Never_ that, I just think--” Nancy’s voice is still calm. Even. “He needs us right now. Like maybe we could, I don’t know. Take shifts, or stay over sometimes too--”

Henderson easily matches her tone. “Steve isn’t a child and he isn’t a burden. ”

Except, he is. Steve reels from how unfailingly Dustin believes in him, like he’s someone worth putting stock into. Like he hasn’t let him down and retreated into a cave.

“Steve. He takes _care_ of us,” Dustin says thickly, “He--”

He doesn’t get the chance to ruminate on it when Nancy says, “He’s stopped taking care of _himself_. I mean, look at him _,_ Dustin. Can you honestly tell me that Steve is the same person? Can you honestly tell me that you aren’t worried _sick_.” 

The silence is deafening.

Steve counts the seconds as they tick by and, cards on the table, he doesn’t expect anyone to defend him. Because he doesn’t deserve it. Because Nancy is _right,_ for Christ-sake.

Steve isn’t the same. Steve’s an asshole. Steve is _selfish._

The response comes from someone who he least expects. 

Jonathan’s voice is quiet, gentle.

“I would be acting the same way if something happened to you, Nance.”

Alright, time do end this.

When he finally scrounges up the courage to round the threshold into the living room, Dustin is so red in the face that he almost laughs _out loud_ at the sight of it.

Henderson’s hair is sticking up in a triangle. Really, a _tangled_ mopey triangle and he’s being swallowed alive by Steve’s sweatpants.

The legs pool under his feet because they’re too long for him, and the Hawkins High shirt is slipping off one shoulder because it’s too big for him and Steve wants to laugh at how _small_ Dustin looks. Like a tiny man.

But Steve doesn’t laugh when he sees the look on Dustin’s face. His heart gives a definite, painful squeeze.

The kid is really going up to bat for him, and in this moment Steve realizes he’s _not_ a kid anymore.

He wonders when that happened.

“Speak of the Devil,” Dustin says, like he’s actually glad to see Steve. “Let the guy speak for himself.”

Nancy is sitting on the arm of the couch, cheeks red from _something._ Anger or concern, he doesn’t know, but then Dustin starts up again and Steve recognizes it immediately.

It’s annoyance and something else. Something soft and gentle.

Steve knows she’s just worried, they all are. Knows it by the way Max scoots over on the couch and actually makes room for him. Knows it by the way Erica is holding Lucas’ hand which she only does when she’s _really_ upset.

And just like that, something cracks inside him.

Steve wants to get better. 

“Look guys, I. I don’t really know what to say-"

“You don’t owe these bird brains _anything_ Steve,” Max's voice is tremulous, like an earthquake splitting continents, “You were right. Everything you said is right, we didn’t try to save him.”

And no one knows how to react to that.

Because they don’t talk about Billy for a long time and then suddenly he’s all _anyone_ can talk about.

“We failed. My brother is dead because of us.” She stares at him, blue eyes burning. “Because of me.”

“Max,” Lucas’ voice is watery. Steve doesn’t have to look to know that he’s crying. That everyone is. “You didn’t kill Billy. That’s just the grief--”

“Shut _up_ okay, you don’t know my brother!” Max is suddenly on her feet, fists balled at her sides and Steve has a weird sense of deja vu.

Halloween, the glint of the moon on Billy’s cheeks.

_What time is it, princess? NOW._

Her brother _._ Max is just like him. “You don’t know why we ended up here.”

And there’s this look on her face.

Steve’s seen it once before, when Max mentioned that she and Billy share books. The first time he couldn’t begin to process the depth of emotion in that stare. Like the memory filled her with that special kind of feeling that is murky. 

Contentment that’s just on the wrong side of peace. The feeling that only grief can bring.

He sees it now. 

“It’s my fault Billy is dead, because--” She swallows so loudly that Steve hears the click in the back of her throat. “Because I sold him out. In California, I. I told everyone that he was--that I found him kissing--Neil almost killed him.”

Something else cracks inside of Steve. 

_You don’t know my father, alright. Guy’s a piece of shit._

So Billy had been telling the truth that day in the trough. 

Steve lets out a slow desperate sound that suddenly he can’t hold in anymore. Before he knows it Max is standing in front of him with that look on her face and she is _so much like Billy._

Blue eyes and proud shoulders and _pain._ Agony. Something ragged and cloudy hidden behind walls and steel doors that, if they’re lucky, Max will let them stare into the eyes of sometimes.

She’s something else, too. 

Protective. “Steve, I’m gonna say this once and that’s it. Okay? Forever.” Her voice is gruff. Wise beyond its years. “He loves you, Steve. I’ve never seen him love like that.”

Steve nods because Billy is here. Everywhere, burning through his lungs. 

“So, okay. He loved you. And he wouldn’t want this. To see you, how you’re suffering. And I _know_ it sounds cliche, or whatever, but Steve. He’d kick your ass if he saw this. It would kill him,” Max’s eyes burn, “It would fucking _kill_ him, Steve. And then it would be your fault.”

Max doesn’t wait for him to respond because her timer is running out. 

Billy had one too. 

Steve doesn’t think he’s supposed to _know_ about the timer, because that would be tipping their hand and he knows not to push. Pushing will just make them clench up, run away.

It took him a long time to learn that.

Steve feels the weight of this moment crush down on him like a ton of bricks. His answer is important. How he chooses to move forward is _important_ and he can’t have any more conversations like this while Billy is out there somewhere. 

Steve takes a deep breath and searches for his voice because he’s going to figure this out, and then he’s going to bring Billy home so Max can have her brother back.

When he speaks again the room is quiet. “Yeah, you’re right, um. That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you guys about.”

\--

In the end they work out an agreement:

Steve has to eat lunch everyday and he has to play DnD with the kids on Saturday nights. Plain and simple.

Food and socialization, that’s the recipe for healing, the potion that Nancy and Dustin decide will get them there in baby steps.

And, one meal a day? He can do that no problem.

So Steve does a good job of nodding his head and agreeing to whatever demands they have, just to quell the tension, and when the majority of the party heads home (after Steve calls their parents and explains that, yes, the kids had a sleepover here last night. He can’t _believe_ how irresponsible--whatever. Doesn’t matter), Dustin cuts up the last pizza and sets it on the counter in front of him.

“I can’t eat this entire--” 

“You can and you will, dumbass. We have it in writing now, remember?” 

And the kid sounds older than Steve, which he tries not to get too caught up in. 

He rolls his eyes and asks for the bottle of ranch his mom always keeps in the fridge so he can ‘dip his crust in it.’ Steve feels like a four year old. 

Like a fucking child who’s being babysat by a tiny, nerdy man. 

It makes him pout. Steve’s a pouter. 

But after a while Dustin helps him finish the pizza because _dude, your skin looks_ **_green._ ** _Like a key lime pie!_ And Steve chokes on how grateful he is for the kid.

Dustin really got up on the hill and, like, slayed the dragon when no one else would. Rescued Steve from therapy or testing or some other grim fate that he just _knows_ he would have said yes to because, cards on the table: to this day there is little he wouldn’t do for Nancy Wheeler.

Billy had been right all along.

Steve cracks a beer. He sips on it while staring out the window at that spot in the street, the one where Billy had collapsed. Where he’d thrown up and fallen into Steve’s arms like he just needed comfort and rest.

Like he'd believed Steve could give it to him.

Steve hopes he didn’t let Billy down. 

“Listen, Henderson. I really appreciate what you--” He starts thickly.

Immediately Steve is cut off by the sound of Dustin digging around in the pantry. 

“No worries. Figured you needed somebody in your court.” He emerges with a bag of chips and three chocolate cupcakes, the kind Billy likes, and juts his chin out with a huff. “You’re kind of helpless, Steve. Did you know that?”

And Steve does know that. He’s an idiot, that’s his whole thing.

He smiles anyway, like a dufus. “Yeah, well. Thanks anyway. You’re like, the only one who understands. Or whatever.”

Dustin shuffles up to the counter and snatches the beer from Steve’s hand. Takes a quick swig right from the can like it’s normal. Like it’s something they do everyday. 

Like Steve isn’t going to have an _aneurysm_ about it or something.

Because underage drinking? Sure, Steve does it. 

But Dustin? Steve will kick his ass for ruining that genius brain of his and Steve feels his face get hot, angry, but can’t bring himself to be upset when Henderson smiles and says:

“No big deal. You die, I die. Remember?”

And fuck. Dustin is his best friend and he doesn’t even care that Henderson’s basically a child, because in a way so is Steve. Lost and confused and trying to exist in a world where things are dark and scary. 

As Dustin shoves three cupcakes into his mouth and basically swallows them whole, Steve feels better.

Like he can finally let the sunshine in.

\--

Judging from the information Steve has gathered it seems easiest to wait for Billy to come to him.

Any time he falls asleep of his own volition his dreams are nightmarish. Twisted. Fucked up in ways Steve has trouble stomaching, even now, so he decides to let Billy drive.

Better safe than sorry.

After he drops Dustin off at home Steve grabs a legal pad from his dad’s office and plants himself in front of the T.V. Rolls up his sleeves and tries to write out what he knows, just so he can be better prepared. 

He’s paid attention these last few years when the world went to shit, okay? Dustin always makes a list.

So, the cassette tapes. 

Billy is communicating through them somehow. _From_ somewhere or maybe from the Upside Down, though Steve is pretty hesitant to consider that one as a possibility. He wrestles with it for a few minutes and then makes a note.

If he's going to do this he has to consider every angle, no matter how unpleasant. 

Next, the lights. 

They’ve flickered pretty much every time he’s fallen asleep in the last few days.

He remembers the first time they faced the Mind Flayer, though at the time it had just been the _one_ Demogorgon (Steve almost laughs. What a simpler time), and his mind convulses around the distant memory of Joyce and her Christmas Lights, like there's something to learn from it.

Steve scrubs a hand across his face because _fuck._ There isn't much about those times that he remembers other than _NancyJonathanNancyCheatingNancy._

Mostly he just remembers being weirded out by the lights when he did see them because the whole set up reminded him of those shitty Ouija boards and to be honest? Steve doesn’t want to accidentally summon a demon. Would like very much to _never_ accidentally summon a demon.

He hadn’t known at the time that she was trying to reach Will. That he was calling to her from the Great Big Somewhere.

So now, Billy’s trying to reach him and Steve’s not really sure how to answer back much less reach through the veil and fucking _snatch_ Billy back into this dimension.

Is like, one _million_ percent sure that that transcends _his_ wealth of knowledge and available skillsets. 

But, he could call Joyce. Ask her about it, how she knew it was her son and not some interdimensional monster paying tricks.

Or he could tell Elven.

That’s always an option even though she’s still working through the whole dead-battery situation. He could call her on the phone and talk to her about it, see what she knows about entering someone's mind.

But then El would tell Max and she would tell _everyone_ and Steve isn’t really equipped to lie or keep secrets, okay? He’s nervous. Steve makes it halfway through dialing her number and then thinks better of it.

So He scrubs a hand across his face and decides to be gentle with himself about the whole thing. Decides that maybe, as eager as he is to get started, everything doesn't have to be figured out right now.

Decides to keep his end of the deal: no one knows about this until he can figure out what’s going on.

Until he can make sure, without a doubt, that everyone will be safe. They can't lose someone else.

Steve decides to apply the skills he does have. Loyalty, bravery, and love. Whatever else he’s lacking he can figure it out along the way. Billy needs him.

He makes a note to check out some books at the library. 

\--

Steve can’t stop staring at that spot in the street.

Things keep tugging at his mind. Murky, dreary thoughts that are almost memories but not quite, almost tangible as they float in and out of focus. His mind keeps grappling for purchase, trying to make heads or tails of the feeling he has but it’s just out of reach. 

Billy's jacket under his fingers, the sound of knuckle connecting to bone.

His fingertips brush against it and then...nothing. It evaporates into thin air.

So he takes his sleeping pills and sulks around the house. Fiddles with the cassette player, watches T.V., waits for Billy to reach through the veil. To give him some sort of sign that he isn’t losing his fucking mind.

Steve thinks he's losing his mind.

Sometime around midnight he wanders into the bathroom and strips his shirt off, just so he can stare at the burns, make sure they're really there.

Steve is real. Billy is _real,_ his handprints lay red and angry against the creamy skin of Steve’s shoulders and he knows it like some sort of deep seated truth. Like stories that have been passed down through millennia, learned and relearned until they become fact.

A life time ago this would have been a stretch. But here, under the fluorescent lights in his bathroom all Steve can think is _Real_ , _here, now._

His fingertips ghost the curve of Billy’s palm--

\--

**And Steve opens his eyes to a sky full of stars. Bright orbs of light grazing his skin, so large and brilliant that he almost sits in the water just so he can watch them twinkle.**

**He feels at peace. Calm,** **_happy,_ ** **with the stars hanging in the air like that...**

 **_Spinning_ ** **in the air like that, it’s beautiful.**

**It takes him a couple of seconds to register that he’s floating on his back, the waves tickling the sides of his face. It feel gentle, like hundreds of butterfly wings. He’s so warm. The water clings to his body, _warm_ against his frigid skin and Steve thinks he could stay here forever. **

**Thinks he could stare at the stars** **_forever,_ ** **If Billy were here too.**

**The shore floats into focus, bobbing a little bit when he turns his head to the side and then, as if in prayer, Billy sits on the sandy beach with his head in his hands.**

**Steve wants to touch him. Grab Billy by the throat and pull him under, keep him safe. Instead he sits upright and crawls forward until Billy looks into his eyes.**

**“Where did you go, love?” He says softly.**

**“I was away,” Steve responds. And he’s confused because who the fuck talks like this? But his mouth forms the words anyway. “I don’t know where. We were here and then we weren’t anymore.”**

**Billy frowns at him and Steve can tell he’s been crying.**

**Can tell he’s scared.**

**“Steve you just. You** **_disappeared,_ ** **I thought--I waited for you.”**

 **“I’m here now,” He says brightly. Because it’s** **_true._ ** **Steve tries to smile and falls flat on his face. “Do you remember that night with the alcohol and the streetlamp?”**

**Billy stares at him for a minute. Then, softly; “Yes.”**

**Steve nods. He scoots closer. “Do you remember how you ran from me?”**

**And he doesn’t want to do this, not really. He doesn’t want to talk about those times, those moments of darkness and uncertainty.**

**Steve wants to be happy.**

**But Billy just takes a deep breath and says, “I’m really good at running from shit, Steve. I’m a professional.”**

**Billy leans forward and stares deeper into Steve’s eyes, like if he tries hard enough he'll be able to see right through him. His eyes flick to Steve’s mouth and then he’s shaking his head. “Where did you go?”**

**“That’s hard to explain,” Steve whispers. Billy doesn’t know he’s dead. Steve can think of a million other things he’d rather do than explain** **_that_ ** **to him.**

**But Billy doesn’t ask him to.**

**“Max. Is she--” Billy swallows. “Is she alright?”**

**“What?”**

**Billy looks around at the horizon and hugs his arms to his chest like he’s cold. “Dunno, it’s just a feeling,” He says.**

**Steve sees the handprints on his forearms then, cutting through his flesh like red paint on a golden statue and he can’t help himself. His heart leaps into his throat.**

**Steve’s fingertips brush against the sear on Billy's arms. “Do they hurt?”**

**His eyes slip closed at the contact. Billy shakes his head, lets it droop against his chest.**

**“I’m sorry,” Steve says. “I have them too, on--”**

**“Your shoulders, yeah,” Billy’s head lifts slowly, and then he’s staring at Steve’s mouth again, “Can I see?”**

**Steve almost faints at the rush of blood in his ears.**

**His fingers are daft and clumsy as he yanks the soppy fabric up over his head, never taking his eyes off Billy’s face.**

**Steve can feel them on his skin, shifting over the handprints and then sliding lower. The night air is like a whisper against his chest; soft, dewy. His breath hitches in his throat when Billy’s fingers close around the side of his neck.**

**Billy shines, the dull twilight absorbed in the richness of his skin. The shadows on his face are erased as the moon escapes from behind a cloud. Steve can see a singular, lonely tear sliding down his cheek. He’s beautiful, breathtaking.**

**Steve is saturated. Almost glowing and translucent, celestial with the moonlight dancing across his features. He chokes on the love in Billy’s voice when he says;**

**“The stars were made for you, kid.”**

**Steve whimpers, slow and painful like a cat being run over by a truck. He tries desperately to avoid slipping into his grief but Billy keeps going like nothing happened. Like everything is fine.**

**“Can you do something for me?”**

**He would do anything. Be anything, be _anyone_ that Billy asked him to. **

**“Yes.” He says simply.**

**Billy swallows, his grip on Steve's necking tightening like he's afraid he'll slip through the cracks in his fingers.**

**"Will you stay with me? Just for tonight."**

**He sounds so young, so afraid. Steve watches the tear slink below Billy's** **jawline and he has the sudden urge to lick it off before it can water this rotten soil. Before it can take root and make things heavy and dark.**

**He would do anything. Be anyone.**

**Billy lets out a shuddery, loose breath.** **He nods. Slow and easy like if he moves to much the moment will end.**

**His eyes drift to Steve's lips again and he chokes on a sound, the vibration of it reaching all the way to the steamy center of Steve's chest.**

**"I missed you, Steve." Billy's voice is like shattered glass. "You left and then. It's like I've been living in the shadows."**

**He doesn't know how it happens. Maybe he moves, or maybe the both of them move but Steve pulls Billy forward. Through the grief and the shit and beyond the confines of death, of what is possible and impossible, until Billy's blue eyes are burning an inch from his face.**

**He's beautiful. Breathtaking.**

**So Steve just wets his lips and says, "I would do anything for you."**

**And Billy says, "Kiss me."**


	9. The Rise and Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where you remind me of that leak in my soul.
> 
> For your viewing pleasure may I suggest that you pair this chapter with:  
> Blank Page by The Smashing Pumpkins  
> and  
> Service Road, by Better Oblivion Community Center
> 
> Afterlife with a smooth slide into the back palette. A hit of longing.  
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "History repeats itself. Somebody said this. History throws its shadow over the beginning, over the desktop, over the sock drawer with its socks--its hidden letters.  
> History is a little man in a brown suit trying to define a room he is outside of. Our history is that you were the hero and I was the dragon and then love swallowed us whole.  
> I know history. There are many names in history, but none of them are ours."

**Steve gets caught up in the sound of the waves against the shore. The glint of the moon on Billy’s cheekbones. The ghost of his breath against Steve’s lips.**

**He tangles his fingers in Billy’s hair because it’s soft, because it’s logical. It should follow.**

**He knows how this story ends. They’re safe at home, Billy is wrapped in a warm blanket and no one dies except the monsters.**

**Steve leans forward, eyes closed and lips parted, because he** **_loves_ ** **him. Because he’s burning with it and can barely keep it contained.**

**Steve kisses Billy because for three months he had thought he was alone.**

**Had let it eat him up and shit him back out again too many times to count.**

**He licks at Billy’s tongue and climbs into his lap, presses their chests together until it hurts because Steve wants to crush their bodies down to nothing and create something new, something holy.**

**A transcendental entity born of love that will outlive them both.**

**He wants to start over. He never thought he’d get another chance to do this, to make it right even if it’s just smoke and mirrors. Bullshit and lies--it doesn’t matter.**

**All that matters are Billy’s hands sliding over Steve’s skin, caressing the dip in his shoulder blades and the swell of his chest in the moonlight.**

**So Steve kisses Billy like the world is on fire.**

**And it** **_is._ ** **And it has been for as long as he can remember, devouring the farmland in Steve’s shitty little heart since Billy fell to his knees under the glow of a streetlamp so many months ago.**

**Steve’s been on fire for years, it seems, and the heat of it finally opens up and consumes him when Billy reaches for the zipper on Steve’s jeans, shaky fingers creating a cavern in the center of his body.**

**Billy slips his fingers inside the opening of Steve’s boxers and that's is it.**

**This is heaven.**

**He kisses Billy because it should follow, he knows how the story ends; Everyone is safe and happy. The nails are put away in their place in the drawer and the lovers lie together in bed.**

**He won’t accept anything else,** **_can’t_ ** **accept anything else.**

**Because when Billy starts moving his hand, slow and steady and firm, Steve bites down on Billy’s lip and says:**

**“** ** _Fuck,_ ** **I can’t live without you.”**

**Billy makes a noise in the back of his throat. “Live without me, what do you--”**

**Steve just hums around Billy’s tongue because he can’t pull away even for a** **_second_** **.**

**This is too important. Too heavy. Too good.**

**But then, as if ashamed, Billy yanks his hands away. His lips still, his eyes pop open and he sets Steve on the ground next to him.**

**Steve gasps at the suddenness of it all, at the cool air that replaces Billy’s heat against his sticky skin. “W-what are you--”**

**“I'm sorry. Don’t wanna move too fast,” Billy says quietly.**

**“Too fast? I’m only going as fast as you are.”**

**Billy rakes a hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry, I just. You need to answer some questions first, I--"**

**"Questions?" Steve is greedy. Impatient. "What the _fuck_ are you talking--"**

**“Where did you go, Steve?”**

**He flinches at the way Billy can flip between personalities. One second he’s soft, malleable, and the next he’s covered in glass. Bristling like a ravenous dog locked in on its prey.**

**He looks like he wants to tear Steve apart.**

**“I don’t, uh. I don’t follow.” Steve says. He runs a hand through his hair and grapples for** **_something._ ** **Anything that could make the moment less heavy.**

**“Before, when you disappeared. Where did you go?” Billy spits. His eyes are burning, venomous, when he adds, “And don’t fuckin’ lie to me, alright? Just. Don’t lie.”**

**And fuck.**

**Steve has to turn away. Put some distance between them because he** **_can’t_ ** **lie to that face. To those eyes, that mouth. He feels sick. “I don’t think you want--”**

 **“I don’t give a** **_shit_ ** **what you think I need or don’t need or** **_fuck all,_ ** **Harrington.” Billy hops off the ground like the sand is on fire, kicking up granules as he paces back and forth along the mouth of the waves.**

 **His voice is pitchy. A boat caught in the middle of a storm. “I’ve been going out of my goddamn mind, kid. I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what happened, I can’t sleep, I.** **_Fuck.”_ **

**Billy scrubs a hand across his face. When he finally turns back around, Steve sees that he’s crying, tears openly sliding down his cheeks.**

**“Would you just tell me.” He says, “Could you. Please.”**

**Steve still isn’t used to it, the way this place has changed him.**

**He feels like they’ve crossed another line. The illusion has been broken, glass littered like fallen stars across the floor.**

**And Steve had thought he could keep Billy safe. Hide the truth until he figured out a plan, a course of action, but of course he didn't think about how Billy feels. Like an asshole, he never thinks about how Billy feels.**

**He doesn’t have a choice anymore.**

**Steve nods. “Yeah, yes. Whatever you need.”**

**Billy exhales, long and slow, before giving a curt nod. “Okay, um. What happened. With the kid, I mean.”**

**“El?” Steve asks dumbly. Billy nods again, like** **_who the fuck else._ ** **“She’s good. I mean, she’s not** **_great,_ ** **but she’s okay. Alive.”**

**“Why _wouldn’t_ she be alive?” Billy says thinly. “Did I. Steve, did--”**

**He can feel the sorrow rolling off of Billy in** **_waves,_ ** **the rawness of it clamping its teeth around Steve’s ankle and pulling him under.**

**“Look, I.” Steve can’t breathe, all of a sudden. “If I’m going to tell you what happened you have to keep an open mind, alright?”**

**Billy blinks at him, confused. “Huh?”**

**“Yes,” Steve says bluntly. “Y'know, trust me? You gotta, like, sit down and shut up. Listen.”**

**Billy rolls his shoulders, the shadow of a smile on his lips. “How open we talkin’ here, Harrington?”**

**Steve stares at him flatly and that’s all the convincing Billy needs. His feet carry him forward until he’s sat in front of Steve in the sand, legs crossed awkwardly in his wet levi's.**

**“Alright, pretty boy. Go ahead and tell your little campfire story.”**

**Steve rolls his eyes. “Do you promise to shut up and listen?”**

**Billy holds out a pinky, very serious. “Friends don’t lie.”**

**And Steve knows it’s supposed to be a joke, Billy uttering the Party’s motto, but he’s never felt less like laughing.**

**He’s been keeping secrets. Not just from Billy but from everyone, even from himself.**

**Steve takes a deep breath and gears up to do the scariest thing he can think of: he's going to tell the ghost of Billy Hargrove the unfiltered truth.**

**\--**

**He starts from the beginning because it seems as good a place as any.**

**He remembers from telling Robin the truth that it’s best to lean in with Barb, first. With that night in the pool. Steve’s learned from his nightmares that Barb, while fucking horrible and devastating, is the easiest pill to swallow.**

**So he starts with the party.**

**With that last night before the light of his youth was snatched from him and gave way to shadow so dark and thick that Steve still has trouble finding his footing in it. The world doesn’t make sense. Is no longer mysterious, no longer magical.**

**The world is cruel. Ugly. He knows that now.**

**Steve trembles as he recounts their story, the horror of it slicing him open and creating fresh wounds on top of the old ones. He had never known what terrible things could happen to kids before the fall of 1983.**

**Afterward it just seems commonplace, mundane. Steve feels like an asshole, but it’s true.**

**He cries the whole time. Sue him.**

**And Billy just listens. His blue eyes are laser focused on Steve’s face, fingers flexing against the fabric of his jeans. His eyes water more and more with each twist and turn. With the disappearance of Will Byers and Hawkins Lab and Eleven.**

**He manages to teeter right on the edge, existing in the sweet spot of denial and awe, right before crashing through the earth. Billy handles it well.**

**Until Steve gets to that rainy night in November.**

**Until he talks about the Demodogs and the Upside Down and the fight.**

**Steve pauses in the middle of describing the return of El because, fuck, Billy’s crying. His tears are spilling over and giving way to an unbelievable emotion, something Steve can’t name.**

**“Do. Do you want me to stop?” He asks shakily.**

**But Billy just frowns, shakes his head. “No, keep going.”**

**So he does. Steve swallows uselessly at the bile in his throat when he talks about the Russian lab. The sterile hallways, the way he’d really thought he was going to die down there with Robin Fucking Buckley, of all people.**

**Something sharp and fragile flashes across Billy’s face when Steve talks about her but it’s gone before he can place it.**

**Then Steve gets to the battle and he can’t go on, anymore.**

**Not with Billy’s blue eyes searing into his skull. His chest feels like it’s hanging open in raggedy shards when Billy nods his head and says, sweetly:**

**“I think I know how this story ends.” He blinks his eyes. Takes a deep breath, blows a curl off his forehead. “Always knew that anger’d kill me. Mom was right.”**

**Steve makes a** **_noise._ ** **So painful to his own ears that he has to fold in on himself, hug his knees to his chest. Microscopic granules of sand rub against his nipples and the pain manages to tether him to this moment, manages to stop him from floating away.**

 **“Billy, I’m.” Steve is overcome with grief. Dripping with it. “I’m so** **_sorry.”_ **

**But Billy just shakes his head again. “S’okay, pretty boy. Really.”**

**Only, it isn’t. It really, hilariously, fucking** **_isn’t._ **

**But Steve can’t argue with those eyes, that gentle smile. He lets his forehead droop forward until it comes to rest on his forearms.**

**He cries.** **_Weeps_ ** **as Billy holds him and whispers things into his hair.**

**Billy rocks him back and forth and says, “It’s okay, I’m here. I’ve got you,” and Steve is instantly reminded of that night with the streetlamp.**

**Funny how the roles reverse.**

**Billy’s fingers are scratchy-sweet against his scalp and Steve melts into it. Wails like a fucking** **_siren_ ** **because:**

 **“I missed you, Billy. Died everyday.” He chokes on drool, but it doesn’t matter. “** ** _Everyday_ ** **since you left. I’m so fucking--”**

**“It’s not your fault, Stevie.”**

**Only, it** **_is._ **

**“I should have known. Shoulda paid more attention, shoulda--” Steve can’t sit still anymore. He pushes away from Billy’s arms, his chest. “Billy, it’s my fucking** **_fault_** **, okay? If I had just answered your letter--”**

**“You. You got my letter?” Billy whispers.**

**And Steve can feel his eyes on him, pinning him in place, but Steve can’t bring himself to look back.**

**“Yeah, I. I read it. Couple of days ago.”**

**Billy is silent for so long that Steve starts to worry.**

**He opens his mouth and closes it again several times, electing to give Billy this moment to process. To work through shit, whatever that looks like for him.**

**So Steve waits. He settles for counting the stars, which seem to have grown brighter over the last hour. He focuses on his breathing ( _i_** ** _n-two-three-four)_ ** **and tries to keep his head above water.**

**The shame is so heavy, like an anchor around Steve’s neck.**

**His fingers start tugging violently at his hair after about five minutes because** ** _fuck._** **Steve killed Billy. He absolutely killed him, there’s no question.** **Steve focuses on the pain, on the thrum of his heart against his ribs until Billy grabs his wrists, gripping tight enough to leave bruises.**

 **“** ** _Steve._ ** **Look at me.”**

**But he can’t. “I killed you.” Steve groans. And just like that the grief laps over him until he’s resting sweetly under the waves.**

**Billy shuffles right into Steve’s face, his hands on either side of Steve’s neck.**

**He squeezes his eyes shut against the bright searchlight of Billy’s stare.**

**“I’m sorry, I’m** **_sorry, please Billy--”_** **Steve babbles. He’s useless. Completely incoherent. But then Billy’s voice gets soft, commanding, and Steve’s stomach fills with something dangerously close to warmth.**

**“Look at me, Steve. Now.”**

**He does. Billy’s gaze instantly softens.**

**“This isn’t your fault.** **_None_ ** **of this is your fault and I mean fucking all of it, okay?” Billy shakes his head like the whole situation is unbelievable, or something. “Every decision I made is on me. Everything is on me, Steve, alright? I’m not mad at you, I fucking--”**

**Billy breaks off and takes a deep breath. Starts over.**

**“I love you, okay? I love everything. Fucking** **_all_ ** **of it. All of you.” His fingers rub sweet, gentle circles at the nape of Steve’s neck.**

**“You’re not. Mad? You don’t hate me, Billy?” His voice sounds like it’s been raked over hot coals. “If you don’t want to see me again, I can--”**

**“Shut** **_up,”_ ** **Billy growls. Steve feels his cheeks redden. “You think I’m letting you go? Because** **_fuck,_ ** **You’re not going** **_anywhere,_ ** **Harrington. I’m not even close to being done with you. Got it?”**

**Steve nods his head because, yeah. The wires have been crossed him his brain when Billy kisses the tears off his face and says, against the skin under his jaw:**

**“Besides, how can I be mad when you won your first fight?”**

**And just like that, Steve melts. His dick gives a painful, violent kick in his jeans and he can’t take it anymore.**

**Steve crushes Billy’s lips against him. Biting, bruising until Billy’s hands finally move from Steve’s neck to his chest, to his ribs, to his thighs.**

**Steve moans into Billy’s mouth, eyes clenched against the starry night.**

**“I love you, Billy,” He says drearily, “I fucking,** **_please,_ ** **just--”**

**“Stop talking.” Billy commands.**

**So he does. Because as Steve’s boxers come off in Billy’s hands, Billy makes sure that Steve’s mouth is too busy to form words.**

**\--**

**They end up holding each other in Billy’s tiny twin bed as the sun rises, bright and unrelenting, over the face of the water. Billy’s fingers trace sweetly over the bare skin of Steve’s ribs in tiny, whispering circles as they drift on the edge of sleep.**

**Steve thinks Billy was made for the golden hours: curls ablaze, cherry lips drinking in the first rays of early morning light, skin bronze with the richness of it.**

**He’d known that Billy was beautiful, alright?**

**Anyone with** **_eyes_ ** **can see he’s well made. Like a goddamn renaissance painting at the worst of times and like a fairytale prince at the best.**

**But still, Steve’s breath is snatched from his lungs when Billy peeks at him through his long eyelashes, a sleepy smile dancing across his lips.**

**Steve’s bitter.**

**“Always sayin’ I’m the pretty boy, look at yourself, pal.” He whispers thickly. “Too pretty. Didn’t know people just came out looking like that, it’s insulting.”**

**“Pal?” Billy chuckles, his chest rumbling sugary-sweet under Steve’s ear. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’, Harrington.”**

**Steve tries to mash their bodies together once again.**

**“Shut up,” He deadpans. “I’m never letting you go.”**

**Billy just tucks Steve’s head under his chin and sighs, long and slow, his heartbeat fluttering like butterfly wings against Steve’s temple.**

**They lay like that for a while. Just drinking each other in, cramped on a tiny mattress in an even smaller room and Steve feels a lump rise in his throat so quickly that he chokes on it, coughing around sudden tears.**

**Billy’s fingers rub across his shoulder blades, soothing, and Steve has to say it again because the words taste so good and sound so right.**

**“I love you.” He says. Billy hums a reply, planting a kiss in Steve’s hair.**

**“Try and get some sleep, baby.”**

**But he’s afraid. Terrified that if he closes his eyes for even a second Billy will evaporate and Steve will be left alone, wandering blindly through the shadows like always.**

**Just the thought of it ties his stomach into knots. “I don’t want to lose you.”**

**Billy just nods. Like he understands. Like he’s afraid, too.**

**His grip tightens all along Steve’s body, bringing them impossibly closer. Then, softly; “You won’t.”**

**And his voice is so strong. So sure. Who is Steve to argue?**

**He sniffles. “Will you. Could you sing to me?”**

**“Sing to you?”**

**“Yeah,” Steve feels ridiculous, like a child. “Or talk to me, just until I fall asleep.”**

**He expects a rebuff, expects to be shoved off while a snide comment is thrown at him over Billy’s tense shoulder, but of course it doesn’t happen.**

**Billy clears his throat and Steve closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted. Billy's voice is so soft as he begins singing. Honey-rough in the early morning light and Steve goes boneless against him. Fragile. He feels his mouth go slack, his breathing even out.**

**_“Has anyone ever written anything for you…”_ **

**Steve slips under the current of sleep, the sound of Billy's voice guiding him home.**


	10. Potholes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) the one where we listen to the weather man because it might rain.
> 
> This one would Taste Good w/  
> Mitchell: Wait for me (live), by Anias Mitchell  
> and  
> Hope, by (sandy) Alex G (again. He's one of my favorites)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Here is the black box, the shut eye, the bullet pearling in his living skin. The boy, half destroyed, screaming; Drive into that tree, drive off the embankment, make something happen. But angels are pouring over the farmland, angels are swarming over the grassland.  
> We are not dirty, He keeps saying. We are not dirty..."

Steve wakes up naked on his bathroom floor clutching a towel around his chest. Which is new. His head is burning a hole in the tile, absolutely _throbbing_ as the sound of waves recede from his ears like the fade at the end of a song

His head feels heavy, rotten like a load of bricks when he sits and looks around the room. His eyes squint, almost like he’s expecting to see someone else.

Like he’s expecting to see Billy. 

Which is absolutely ridiculous upon first thought but the joke loses its meaning somewhere in the middle, near sandy beaches and morning sunlight and honey-dew laughs. 

Billy’s out there. Steve has to keep reminding himself. 

He stares in the mirror for a while after that, reeling at the rosy-flush in his cheeks; the sparkle in his eye. Steve looks healthy, almost--whole.

Alive.

It’s startling. The way he _feels_ almost at one-hundred percent after months of running on E.

The way he _looks_ like he’s in a good place, the feeling of it waving at him from five feet away.

Almost home but not quite.

The burn marks rest, bright red and angry, against the milky highlight of Steve’s shoulders. He nearly doubles over at the memory of Billy’s mouth on his skin, the flick of his tongue against muscle and ligament. 

Steve expects to see something lower on his body, memory littered like confetti against his hips, his groin.

But, he notices after a few seconds, the only burns on his skin live on his shoulders. 

Breathing like they are alive.

Fuckin’ weird. He splashes water across his face and hops into the shower. 

Steve tries to ignore the gnaw of irritation against his chest, tries to push it down and pile things on top of it so the monster can't escape. So its only options are to shrivel and die.

The situation is ever-changing, morphing and mutating against the backs of Steve’s eyelids; so Billy doesn’t leave a mark every time.

Big whoop.

So Steve had expected childish things. Bullshit, selfish, _pathetic_ things like validation. Comfort.

Proof.

The prints make it real. 

Steve wants Billy to carve him up, to scrape his teeth along Steve's skin and draw blood. Leave marks. Stake a claim, his signature an ancient sigil of hope against Steve's parchment frame.

He wants something tangible. Something to remind him, in moments like this under the harsh fluorescent light of _here. Now,_ that Billy is waiting for him.

Billy is here. 

Steve wants a constant reminder.

He tries not to be disappointed.

\--

“--how modern film just doesn’t have the same _passion_ as it did during the mid-century, you know? Like before technicolor and modern voice it was kickass. Like, only narrative stories about the height of human emotion and _desire_ \--”

Steve stands, pasting 30% off stickers on an old stack of _New Releases,_ angry as Keith drones on about fucking _something._

Nothing, Steve thinks. Pointless shit Steve will never understand because he's not pretentious.

“No, I get that. It’s like with modern horror.” Robin deadpans from Action/Adventure land. “Sure, Craven has _Elm Street_ and Kubrick has _The Shining_ but they really have nothing on a Browning or a Whale or a Hitchcock.” 

_God,_ he’d rather be doing algebra homework. 

“ _Vertigo_ changed my life.” Robin adds.

And Steve wants to cut his own ears off, holy shit. 

Because their first day at work is going _perfect_ and Steve _totally_ isn’t jealous that Robin and Keith have, like, a ton of things in common and would make better sense as friends.

They’ve been talking about film for the past five hours, taking up space in the air with big words like _aperture_ and _contrast._

Concepts that simpletons like Steve have trouble understanding.

“You could go to a doctor for Vertigo,” He says, “I hear Lewinsky isn’t just a quack.” 

He’s trying to be funny, okay? 

But sarcasm is obviously above Keith’s pay grade or something.

He stares at Steve like he just barfed and says, haughty: “ _Vertigo_ is a classic Hitchcock film, though I doubt you would know that, given your I.Q.--”

“ _Jesus_ Keith, ‘s joke, man.” Steve wipes the counter with a rag, just for something to do. And then, because he’s in a mood; 

“You guys seen anything from _this_ decade?”

Robin points a teasing finger. “We saw _Back to the Future,_ asshole. Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“What is this, amateur's hour? Blockbusters are liquidated, Harrington.” Keith grunts, “Everyone knows that.”

Steve blinks at him. “They’re _supposed_ to be predictable, Sanders, that’s the point. Fun for the whole family, you know?”

Keith just rolls his eyes. 

Steve presses on. “Okay, have either of you seen _the Goonies?”_

Robin halts all conversation for the five seconds it takes to ring up a customer and then she’s on him like flies on shit. “You mean _Steve Harrington: Real Life Babysitter?_ ”

Keith makes finger guns. “She got ya there, dude.”

He ignores them, like always. _Thinks_ for a minute because he wants to go somewhere with the conversation.

Wants to prove that he can dissect movies and hold opinions and be a pretentious dick too, okay? 

But, like always, Steve’s dumb brain takes too long and they’re both staring at him so Steve just settles for:

“Like that movie. It’s funny.”

And it’s not even a complete sentence. Fuck.

Robin smirks at him. “That’s...all you have to say? Just _it’s funny.”_

So their week at work is going great. 

Steve feels his face get hot, _angry_ , because he’s never understood why artsy-fartsy losers have to make everyone else feel like shit for the things they like. 

He sticks to his guns.

“Yeah,” Steve says, voice short. Clipped. “I fucking think it’s _funny_ and that’s valid. Not everybody majored in nerd-dom like you two losers, okay? Some of us got laid in high school.”

Keith raises his eyebrows, “Oh _now_ we’re losers?” He clutches at his imaginary pearls, pretending to be _shocked_ like an _asshole._

Steve thinks if Keith wants to see the old Steve Harrington, if he wants that jock dickwad to come out and go a few rounds, he’s in luck.

“Not you, Sanders. You were always a loser.”

And he means it. 

Suddenly the air feels heavy when all of the playfulness drains from Keith’s face like color from a snow cone.

He smirks. “And how _is_ the Hair doing these days, huh? Not well, I’d guess. You haven’t been hot shit since Wheeler dumped you and that was two _years_ ago.”

“Not true,” Robin pipes up, “The girls were all over him at Scoops, Keith, I already told you--”

“Bullshit, people talk.”

Steve’s lungs have stopped working. “The hell’s that supposed to mean, dick?”

Conversation halts again as more customers enter the store. 

Steve and Robin make their rounds, assisting with video selection and running to grab things from the back. They work their asses off for twenty minutes and then it’s dead again. 

Keith’s words hang in the air like a goddamn storm cloud.

Steve thinks about what would happen if he just apologizes for being an asshole, for proving Sanders right in his judgements.

Would Keith let it go? Could they form a shaky alliance and work together like chums, like friends?

Steve seriously doubts it and, sure enough:

“Ever since November,” Keith blurts out, “People have been talking. About you. They say stuff around me because they don’t think I listen. I do, though. Hear some pretty juicy shit.”

“What’ve they been saying?” Robin asks. “Steve doesn’t really have friends over the age of fourteen, there’s nothing interesting about him.”

“Gee, _thanks.”_ Steve grumbles.

He can tell by the look on her face that Robin is covering for him, trying to undo the damage.

Keith still doesn’t buy it. “They’ve just been saying that you’re. You know.”

Steve blinks at him. “No, I really _don’t_ , Sanders.”

Keith looks uneasy. Nervous, like Steve’s eyes are knife carving him up on the inside and the words come pouring out against his will, gushing like blood from open wounds. 

“That blonde asshole. The, um, the one who--”

“Billy.” Steve grits. He tries to focus on his breathing, tries to hold onto reality. “That’s his name.”

Keith nods. “Billy, yeah sure. Whatever man. People just keep saying--”

Robin hands Steve a stack of tapes, ears red as a lobster. “Hey, these need rewinding. You go, um, do that? Steve, yeah? Keith and I got it under control up here.”

Steve tears his eyes away from Sander’s and his flushed cheeks. He opens his mouth to argue but Robin just shakes her head. Once, twice. 

_Take a breather._ He feels the words in the air.

So he does.

\--

People talk. Steve knows this better than anyone.

When Nancy dumped him in their first semester of Senior year he had thought maybe people were above gossip, even then. Had tricked himself into thinking that people didn’t _care._

They were almost adults, for Christ-sake, taxpayers and shit. 

Steve had thought that, maybe, people had more important things to focus on. Like ACTs and college prep--literally anything else; Why would the entire student body of Hawkins High care about a breakup between two consenting adults? 

He’d been wrong, of course. 

Shit was all over the place, gossip flowing down the hallways like river water. It followed Steve from class to class, the stares. The whispers.

Everyone had their theories, “insights” that circulated so quickly they became fact.

Nancy was moving to Michigan.

Steve had tried to hit Mike Wheeler with his car on Halloween night, or had paid someone to do it.

And, most famously: Nancy was in love with Jonathan Byers. 

Steve hadn’t really believed it at the time but, naturally, he had been wrong again. 

No one had ever connected Billy to it though. To Steve. 

Through all the drama, all the shit and piss they had managed to keep their turbulent _whatever_ under the thick cover of desire even after it went up in flames.

Out of sight, out of mind, and to be honest or a long time Steve liked it that way.

He was still coming to terms with his sexuality, back then.

Still researching, still writing letters to an LGBTQ representative from a center in Indianapolis when he got a letter to name his feelings.

Bisexual.

By that point it had been too late.

Steve had been afraid to admit his attraction to Billy at the time because, as Keith had so eloquently put it, people talk.

He’d been terrified to see the look on Nancy’s face when she found out. Had worried that Dustin would never look at him the same again, that his parents would disown him, or worse.

He knows now that he had been a coward.

Steve sits down to rewind the videos and he hates himself all over again. Suddenly it’s October and he’s pining for those blue eyes, lost in a sea of questions and uncertainty, slipping under the waves.

Drowning. That’s what it felt like.

He understands now what Billy had been trying to say. 

_People talk, people ruin. Let me preserve you._

Steve packages a fresh copy of _Caddyshack_ and beats himself over the head with that simple, gutting truth for the millionth time; you should have done something.

_You coward, you should have loved him._

He shoves a second tape into the V.C.R and leans against the palm of his hand, suddenly exhausted. The dark room and the faint glow of the small T.V. provide a comforting feeling, like he’s at home on the couch. 

People talk, so let them.

Steve isn’t afraid anymore.

\--

**The ball bounces against the driveway, little fragments of concrete and mud floating in the air with every impact like Steve’s standing in a puddle or breaking through the soggy Earth.**

**Only he isn’t, he can’t be, because his shoes would be wet and they’re dry.**

**Like the desert, like a bag of bones.**

**“What’s that song you’re singing?”**

**Steve lifts his head from the basketball to find Billy shirtless, clad in leather and residual beer. Moonlight filters through the branches of a tree, breathtaking shadows dancing across Billy’s face like a fleet of ballerina’s.**

**Steve’s backyard. Halloween.**

**He would know this picture** **_anywhere._ ** **Would know the script even if he hadn’t memorized it that very night.**

 **“I, uh--” He tries lamely.** **_Think._ ** **“What song, Billy Jean?”**

**Billy raises his eyebrows, surprised.**

**He holds his hands out for the rock, lopsided grin sending a jolt of electricity through Steve’s bones. “What are you, a hundred? The one you were just singing, dipshit.” He teases.**

**Steve passes the ball. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Billy goat.”**

**He freezes.**

**The ball hits the ground and rolls across the grass and Steve sprints to get it because he knows the story. He knows how it ends.**

**Billy stares at him. “What did you just say?”**

**The debris is floating at eye level now, almost like gravity gave way to something lighter, something worse. Steve’s breath comes out in a white puff as he shuffles from one foot to the other.**

**This is new.**

**The hair on the back of his neck stands on end. Something is wrong, he can feel it.**

**“Billy, are you alright?” Steve asks, but it’s like talking to the television.**

**They’re lost in the woods again, right in the thick of it.**

**“My, my mother, she.” Billy swallows so thickly that Steve feels it in his own throat, like Billy’s got his hands around Steve’s neck. “She’s gone?”**

**Steve nods, because: “Yes. Yeah, I. I think so.”**

**Billy lets out a breath, his eyes widening in fear. “Who’s going to call me home? How will I find my way?”**

**“I don’t. Billy, I--”**

**And then he’s running, just like that night, sprinting through the backyard like there’s a monster chasing him.**

**Steve follows, helpless to do otherwise.**

**His legs pound against the grass and the concrete as Billy disappears around the side of the house.**

**Steve is always too slow, always losing his way when it matters most, always just out of reach.**

**He rounds the corner expecting to find Billy crouched under the streetlamp like always.**

**Only, Steve is alone. “Billy?”**

**His voice bounces back to him instantly, amplified by the void. He spins in slow, even circles, consumed by fog and floating rocks as he calls out into the darkness.**

**“Bill--”**

**That’s when he hears it.**

**The clicking.**

**That old familiar sound that has been the backtrack to Steve’s nightmares, his worst fears.**

**He’s going to throw up.** **_Fuck_ ** **he’s going to die**

**Steve turns around slowly, like he’s moving through molasses to face what he knows is there, what has been waiting in the shadows for as long as he can remember.**

**Instead Steve sees a woman dressed in white, like an angel.**

**From this distance he can’t make out much other than her blonde halo of hair that picks up light from the streetlamp.**

**He doesn’t have to get any closer to tell that she’s beautiful.**

**Warm. Safe.**

**Steve trips over his feet to cross the space between them, to escape the harsh darkness outside the streetlamp. She reaches out her hand.**

**“Wait,” She says.**

**Her shoulders rise and fall with ragged, loose breaths, like she’s trying to keep her head above water. When she speaks again her voice is soft, firm.**

**“You have to let him go.”**

**“No.” Steve walks forward, into the light. “Absolutely not, he called out for me--”**

**“He called your name before he went,” She says. “You weren’t listening.”**

**He blinks away confused, angry tears.**

**This is bullshit.**

**“Who are you?” He demands.**

**She lifts a hand to touch Steve’s face, fingertips soothing his feverish skin and suddenly he doesn’t feel like fighting anymore.**

**Steve has seen her somewhere.**

**He knows those blue eyes, the soft curve of those lips.**

**They’re familiar. A memory caught on the breeze.**

**Like home.**

**“Do you know how it ends?” She whispers. “Do you feel lucky?”**

**Steve stares in wonder as she brushes those fingers through his hair, down the back of his neck, and he knows he’s supposed to say something.**

**So; “What’s going on, can you--” Steve takes a deep breath, staring into her kind eyes. “Is he okay?”**

**“Turn around,” She says.**

**And Steve does. His feet move without his permission until he’s staring down a dark and empty street, the lamps flickering one after the other.**

**“Let me tell you a story,” She whispers.**

**In the distance Steve can see someone walking among the lights, his chest bruised and bloody.**

**Sliced open right down the middle.**

**“A man walks into a bar and says** **_make it a double, walk a mile in my shoes._ ** **So you do. And you take him out into the rain and you fall in love with him. Then he leaves and you are desolate.”**

 **Her voice is soothing, a gentle soundtrack to the man walking closer and closer through the fog. Steve reaches out his hand because he** **_knows_ ** **that body.**

**Those shoulders, that blood.**

**Has seen it in his dreams.**

**Billy is wandering through the lights and he’s calling out, Steve can see his lips moving against the backdrop of the night.**

**But he can’t hear it.**

**Something is walking closely behind him. Controlling his movements like Billy's a puppet, a secret fascination.**

**More blood drips from his writs onto the street and Steve nearly faints.**

**Lurches forward from his spot under the light, but the hand on the back of his neck pins him in place.**

**He sobs.**

**“What do I do,” Steve asks. Because Billy is in pain and he wants to make it _stop_ , whatever it takes.**

**The hand moves to rest on the back of Steve’s skull.**

**“This is where the evening splits in half,” She says. “Love or death. Pick a side, pull hard, and make a wish.”**

**\--**

“Steve?”

He starts, arms flailing out to knock an outstretched hand away. 

“Woah, Harrington, you’re alright, you’re okay,” The voice babbles, only it couldn’t be farther from the truth. 

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. Desperate, frightened. 

It takes Steve five seconds to recognize the room he’s in, the face staring down at him with worry lines creating her makeup.

“Robin, shit, sorry,” He says thickly, “I fell asleep?”

“Dude, _yeah_. You’re lucky it was me who found you and not Keith.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Steve says again. 

And he means it, this isn’t Robin’s problem.

“Jesus _Christ_ Steve, I thought I was gonna find you hacked to pieces.” Robin straightens out, arms crossed over her chest. It reminds him so much of his own mother that he nearly breaks down right there, ever the mama’s boy.

Steve misses his parents. “I was making noise?”

Robin runs a hand through her hair and sits on the table, knocking the pile of V.H.S tapes to the ground with a pitiful clank. 

“You were doing a lot more than that, dingus.” Her voice is soft. “I thought your pills were helping with the nightmares.”

“They were,” He says slowly, “I mean. They _are,_ yeah they’re helping. Sometimes.”

Robin bites her lip and says, “You can tell me anything, Steve. No matter what. Scoops Troop, remember?” 

Steve’s knee-jerk reaction is to deflect.

“Yeah, no, of course,” He says. Practiced, prepared. 

“Steve,” Robin chides. “Come on. You can’t fool me with that shit anymore, alright?”

He groans. “Yes, Buckley, Jesus. If I had anything to tell I’d spill it, okay? You know I would.”

Robin stares at him for an endless moment and Steve remembers that night at Starcourt. The laughing gas, his friend on the bathroom floor with tears in her eyes. 

She had been so brave, telling him the truth. 

Steve wishes he could be like that.

Finally, Robin grins. “Yeah, alright, I believe you Dingus. And hey, I was thinking we could get together Thursday, have another movie night?”

“Yeah, whatever you want,” Steve deadpans. He rubs a hand across his face, suddenly overcome with a throbbing ache in the back of his neck. 

“And, um. I thought I might bring someone. With me? I dunno.” Robin shuffles on her feet, clearly nervous. 

Steve completely forgets about his headache.

“You met a girl?” He screams, “Holy shit, Buckley’s got game after all.”

Robin goes beetroot, frazzled. 

“Jesus, maybe get a little louder, I don’t think the people in Chicago heard you,” She grumbles. 

But there’s a smile in there somewhere.

Steve shrugs his shoulders because _Robin;_ she’s he’s hero. Everything she does is so brave.

So loud and colorful and unapologetic.

Steve holds his shit tightly in his fist, wings clipped, always hiding so no one can get too close.

He wishes he could be more like that.

Like Robin.


	11. Lily of the Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) if we wanted to tell you everything we would have left more footprints in the snow.
> 
> Pair this chapter with:  
> Rooms on Fire, by Stevie Nicks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There is no way to make this story interesting. A pause, a road, the taste of gravel in the mouth. The little rocks dig into my skin like arrowheads.  
> And then the sense of being smothered alive; a boat at night slamming into the dock again without navigation, without consideration.  
> The boy will get up.  
> And strangely, I am trying to spell both our names at once."

Hawkins Public Library sits, ominous and looming over the intersection of Park and Christening like an omen of darkness. Its cheerful brick siding and green doors provide a stark contrast to everything else in town, like it dropped from the pages of a novel and onto the street. Quaint and old timey, warm.

Steve lights a cigarette. 

He watches the rain thunder against its slate gray roof from the cab of the Beemer, squinting out the window as the wind picks up and rocks the car back and forth. 

He doesn’t hate the library. Far from it, in fact. 

When Steve was younger and his parents still elected to give half a shit about leaving him alone, his mother would bring him here on weekends for story time with Mr. Robinson.

She would wake him up on Saturday mornings with hash browns from _McDonalds_ and the expectation that he would behave himself for the three hours she had to run errands. 

Steve would sit on the tiny circle rug with the other kids, enthralled by Mr. Robinson’s voice and the air he put on for the characters. For years he had built a repertoire of voices--every character was unique, each had their own personality, and thus his stories melted off the page in bright colors, attacking Steve’s imagination like a fleet of sharks. 

_The Berenstain Bears_ were always his favorite.

Story time with Mr. Robinson was the only instance Steve could sit still. By a liberal estimate, Steve would say he got in trouble about _a thousand_ times a day for being disruptive both at home and at school.

He had been an active child, incredibly hyper and short-focused and expressive, so it was a miracle that he enjoyed Story Time so much.

It’s especially bizarre that Steve remembers those afternoons so clearly, years later, even now as he sits waiting for the rain to let up. 

He lights another cigarette just for something to do.

If he’s being completely honest with himself this is a stakeout. Well, at least a partially.

Dustin hangs out at the library, like a nerd.

Steve should know, he's driven him enough times when the weather was too shitty to ride his bike. The kid loves this place. Talks about it like it’s the coolest building on Earth and, hell, maybe it is.

The belief that Hawkins Library held all the best secrets of the universe was something he himself had subscribed to, when he was younger.

Right before he became interested in other things.

Like keggers and tits and killing monsters. 

Steve cranks the heat up in his car, eyes glued to the front door. So far he hasn’t seen heads or tails of Henderson or the other kids and their gaggle of bikes. 

He’s grateful. Steve tries not to feel guilty about that.

He takes one final drag of his cigarette and decides, okay, it’s now or never.

With a flourish Steve throws the door open. He trots through the rain, making quick work of the short distance between his car and the library doors.

When he ducks into the soft light of the main entrance the first thing he notices is that everything is exactly the same.

Frozen in time, like a picture.

From the dark wood paneling on the walls, to the brown and white tiled floor to the green lamps strewn about the foyer, Steve feels like he’s five years old again.

It gives him such a potent sense of deja vu that Steve nearly reaches for his mothers phantom hand in the space next to him, feeling so small by the sheer size of this space.

It’s ridiculous. Steve _feels_ ridiculous, but.

He takes a few seconds to shake the water from his hair, anyway. Steve left work and drove all the way across town to get here. To _research_ so he shrugs the wet coat from his shoulders and tacks it on a hook by the front door with the others. 

It’s silent. 

Like a graveyard. Like a _library,_ Steve deadpans, as he scrubs his shoes on the rug before tip toeing to the front desk. 

Steve rings the bell.

He jumps at the sound of it, at the memories it evokes.

Steve hopping from one foot to the other long the tiles like a chess piece. Waiting impatiently as his mother checked out a stack of books for him, hissing at him to _behave_. 

The novels were always dull. Boring shit, mostly, like the classics and a couple of children’s works when she was feeling generous.

Steve never read any of them.

“Golly, it's really coming down out there." The librarian materializes from the rows of shelves behind the desk, her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She smiles warmly. "What can I do for you?"

Steve remembers her, too. He blinks. “Hi, I’m uh. I’m here to do some research? For a school project.” He lies.

“School doesn’t start until September, kiddo. Isn’t that right?” Her face is kind, open, but Steve still panics.

Like researching ‘just for the hell of it,’ is a crime punishable by death.

He scrambles for something, anything that won’t blow his cover.

“Yes ma’am it’s just, uh,” Steve tries to turn on the charm. “I like to get a head start on my classes, you know. Rack up as much extra credit as I can.”

And then, because he’s supposed to be the King, or something; “And mom always said to meet girls at the library.”

The librarian stares at him. 

Steve’s an idiot. It’s been confirmed. He almost turns around and leaves right then because _fuck,_ he used to be better at this. 

Before he has a chance to retreat she pulls out a catalogue. 

“Well, good for you, kiddo.” She smiles at him. “What’s the topic?”

“My--huh?” Steve asks. Like an idiot, but what else is new.

“Yes, your research topic. Our library is organized by period and subject so I’ll need to know what you’re here to research.” She explains patiently.

Steve still doesn’t seem to get it.

He had thought it would be easier than this. Thought he would show up and demand the key to the archives, to the restricted area down in the basement where he _knew_ they kept all their books on the Occult. 

Steve had grown up hearing stories about the Lower Level. That it was haunted, that there were pentagrams etched into the ceilings and shit.

Hell, Tommy and Carole claimed to have fucked down there a couple of times though Steve seriously doubts the validity of that detail.

The pentagrams, though? Stranger things have happened.

Steve smiles and decides to tell the truth.

“It’s a special project, like I, uh. Like I said? For English.” He’s still new at this. Steve takes a deep breath. “I need the key to the restricted area.”

He’s going to get that key, come hell or high water.

The librarian tuts, like she’s hesitating but she moves to put the catalogue away which Steve sees as a positive. Her voice is muffled as she disappears between a row of mahogany shelves. 

“What English teacher would assign something that requires a student to read such vulgar material?” So she’s one of _those_. 

Perfect.

Steve thinks back to Junior year English. To Mrs. Jameson and her stupid voice reading every movement of Dante’s Devine Comedy like her goddam life depended on it. He tries to root through what he can--something important dances just out of reach. 

Steve was pretty useless back then.

He doesn’t recall much about those few weeks in class. Nancy Wheeler had just started wearing v-necks so his mind was preoccupied, but he does remember thinking the comedies weren’t aptly named.

So, Steve pulls something out his ass just to save time.

“A hero’s journey through hell. Mrs. Jameson is teaching _Dante’s Inferno_ again this year and she wanted some of us seniors to research death. Purgatory, I think it’s called.”

Another lie. Steve graduated in may.

The librarian rounds the corner again and instantly brightens. “Ah, I know the comedies well: _Love, which quickly arrests the gentle heart, seized him with my beautiful form that was taken from me, in a manner which still grieves me.’”_

She pauses, a soft smile on her lips. “There is no love without suffering.”

Steve just nods because, _okay?_

He smiles back at her, drumming his fingers on the countertop. 

For an endless moment she stares at him, like Steve's made of glass. Like she can see right through to the other side.

It makes him squirm, his shoes squeak dully on the checkered tile as her kind eyes search every hill and valley of his face.

After an eternity she hands him the key. 

Steve takes a deep breath, reaching out to grasp at the tiny brass shape dangling in front of him. “Hey, thanks--” He freezes when she doesn’t let go.

“Pull hard and make a wish.” She says.

Steve nearly collapses in horror but just as quickly the moment is gone and Steve is left standing at the front desk.

_Make a wish._

Steve doesn't know how but he’s on the right track. Can feel it in his bones.

His shoes squeak as he takes the stairs two at a time.

\--

It’s just a basement.

Steve feels like an idiot for thinking it could be something else but then again, his imagination has always tried to fill in the gaps. 

His fingers immediately fumble with the light switch, wincing as stark light floods the room.

The ceiling is low enough that Steve’s hair catches on the popcorn stucco. He brushes his fingertips against it, surveying the endless rows of shelves and columns. 

Steve doesn’t know where to begin, so he wanders around the space.

It’s obvious that no one’s been down here in a long time. Every surface is covered in a thin layer of dust, blanketed like snow among the novels and research manuscripts. He imagines the librarian making a trek down here once every couple of weeks, too afraid to enter the space, if the stack of books by the door is anything to go by.

Steve pulls a crumpled piece of paper from his wallet and scans the list he had scratched out a few nights ago.

So: the afterlife. Limbo, purgatory, hell, resurrection--those are his starting points. He heads to the isle marked _Western Religion_ first because this is Hawkins, after all. 

Steve scans the spines and gives up almost immediately.

Sure, his family is Roman Catholic and Steve grew up attending mass every Sunday with his grandma Ruth but he doesn’t remember _anything_ about Jesus appearing to his gay lover in a dream.

Would definitely have remembered something like that.

This _situation,_ whatever it is, is beyond God’s area of operation. The handprints though...Steve pauses in front of the reference section. He remembers the countless hours in Sunday School he sat listening to Sister Elenore prattle on and on about Jesus’ miracles. 

So many parables and stories about those hands--the blind man in Bethsaida, the leper in Galilee, and Lazarus who was resurrected.

Steve leaf's through a book titled _Interpreting the Resurrection_ and sticks it under his arm.

He makes a quick lap of the room before finally stumbling across a section in the far back corner labeled: _Satanic Occult._

And, okay. 

This is the Midwest so Steve _knows_ it’s just a gaggle of overzealous Bible Thumpers trying to eliminate the scourge of Witchcraft in the local youths, or whatever, but this particular section is caged off from the rest of the room.

Bit excessive, if you ask Steve.

He tries the key he was granted earlier and no dice, it sticks in the lock like it’s made of bubblegum or something. He jiggles the handle once for good measure, thinking maybe the last person who was down here somehow _forgot_ to lock the door behind them. 

Again, Steve is left high and dry. 

He shrugs his shoulders and thinks, okay. Worse case, he’ll have to visit Barnes and Noble in Indianapolis next weekend. Look through the catalogues at the front desk and have them order something special.

Sure, it would set Steve back but at least the books could be delivered to his front door. And then he wouldn’t have stomach strange looks and even stranger questions from nosy librarians--

His heart freezes solid in his chest, stuttering out midbeat. 

Someone’s in the caged space, watching him from the shadows.

Steve can’t see their face but he can hear their loose, ragged breathing. He feels a rush of relief that the shape is vaguely human

The book in his hands clatters to the floor.

_Run away and run away fast._

He doesn’t, though. Because this isn’t real.

There are stories about this basement. Of little girls and crazy axe murderers, decades of tall tales about angry spirits hell-bent on tormenting the bookworm community. The most popular one is a librarian who hung herself in the basement twenty years ago. 

But those are just campfire stories meant to impress girls at keggers before you try to get into their pants and Steve? He kills monsters. Is damn near a professional, at this point.

He isn’t afraid.

So, he bends down to snatch his book from the dirty floor. Clenches his eyes and takes three deep breaths before standing slowly to face an empty room.

The room isn’t empty, though.

Because that person is still in there.

Staring at him from the shadows.

Steve decides to be an adult. “If you’re just gonna stand there like that you might as well open the door,” he says. 

And Steve doesn’t know what he’s expecting. 

Ever since the fall of 1983 when he started slamming monsters in the face with studded bats twice a week, things have been mixed up. 

What used to be impossible is now reality. Steve doesn’t have trouble accepting things as fact, anymore.

There's a tiny part of him though, ever the skeptic, that wills the figure to disappear. To vanish into thin air like he’s seen them do in movies.

It starts whimpering, instead.

Steve wasn't expecting that.

Every hair on his body stands on end like he’s being struck by lightning. His animal instincts scream at him to run, louder this time, so Steve listens.

His feet move at ¼ speed, carrying him backward until his shoulder blades slam into a bookcase.

Steve is frozen in fear. 

Completely, utterly terrified as the metal door swings open and the thing starts _moving_. Lurching forward, its jerky limbs reaching out like they’re trying to find something to cling on to.

Steve wishes he had his bat.

He lifts the book instead. Preparing to punch the figure out with it’s hardcover, or something.

But then the creature steps into the harsh fluorescent light of the basement and Steve sees her.

 _Really_ sees that face.

Pale, like death. Freckled cheeks drained of color. Red hair caked with shit and black slime to indicate where she’s been hiding. Where she vanished to several lifetimes ago.

For two years everyone had thought she was Missing.

Gone. Though Steve was one of the few that knew the truth and the guilt has been eating him alive.

Steve he has seen her every night for two years.

Floating in his pool face down _every night_ for as long as he can remember.

Barbra Holland.

She opens her mouth to scream.

And Steve takes off running.

\--

He wakes up in his car.

It's dark outside, the streetlights reflecting against the hazy puddles in the road.

Steve head spins when he lifts it from the wheel, not unlike the night Billy beat the hell out of him.

Fuck.

The library looms, massive and dark in front of him like a painting.

He wonders distantly how he got here.

Like always his head is pounding and like _always_ he reaches for the glass of water that should be on a table next to him, but Steve comes up empty-handed.

Because he's not at home. Obviously.

But then, like clockwork, Steve remembers what happened.

His shift at the video store, his journey to the basement level and the locked _Satanic Occult_ section.

It takes him all of five seconds to remember her face.

Her mouth, opening beyond the confines of what is natural. What is _human,_ to release sound.

Steve will never forget that sound.

He starts to panic.

His fingers grapple for the handle of his door, relieved when the cool night air brushes against his skin. 

Two seconds later he's dry heaving in the street.

Just like that night with Billy and the lamps only this time, he's alone.

Steve feels like he's losing his mind.

So, he allows himself to take a break. To sit on the damp, cool concrete while the stoplights cycle through the colors.

Red, yellow, green.

Stop.

He focuses on his breathing. 

Two cars drive past him, slowing down to make sure everything's okay and Steve longs for his bed. For a down comforter and Billy's chest rising and falling against his temple.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and realizes that he can _have that._

All he has to do is fall asleep.

He clambers back into the Beemer, slamming the door behind him because fuck if he's going to have to explain to deputy Clark why he was sleeping in his car.

Steve puts the Beemer in reverse and prepares to pull into the street when he notices a stack of books on the console next to him.

He puts the car in park, fingers shaking as he lifts the titles to his face, one by one.

_Dreams and Shadows._

_While We Sleep._

_Oneirgonisis: Lucid Dreaming_

And, lastly: _the 1920 Book of Clairvoyance._

His resurrection's book is nowhere to be found.

How Steve managed to make this selection after the thing with Barb...and then having no memory of it?

Steve feels his head start to swim, his vision blur. 

_Clairvoyance._

It tickles the edges of his mind. 

He flips through the book, pausing as the pages catch on a tiny piece of paper shoved between pages 10 and 11.

Steve's heart jumps into his throat because there, in Billy's neat handwriting is a letter.

A message.

_Here I am, leaving you clues._

_I am singing now while Rome burns._

Steve can't get home fast enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really getting into crafting this universe, folks, lemme tell ya.  
> I can feel the canon divergence coming but it won't be anything major. And honestly, I had to do a lot of research regarding death & purgatory in Christianity as well as Greek Mythology. I'm pagan so I'm far more familiar with the latter and I just...I'm excited.  
> I really hope you'll enjoy where this story is heading.  
> Thank you for indulging me thus far. Your kindness shines through every comment, every kudos, and I really hope that I'm giving you something to digest and enjoy during these Super Shitty Times.


	12. We Have Always Lived in the Castle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) I still cry out for you
> 
> This chapter is from Billy's perspective. He is scattered and trying to pick up the pieces.
> 
> Pair it with:  
> Something in the Way, by Nirvana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There are two twins on motorbikes but one is farther up the road, beyond the hairpin turn, or just before it, depending on which twin you are in love with at the time. Do not choose sides yet. It is still to your advantage to remain impartial. Both motorbikes are shiny red and both boys have perfect teeth, dark hair, soft hands.  
> The one in front will want to take you apart, and slowly. His deft and stubby fingers searching every shank and lock for weaknesses.  
> You could love this boy with all your heart.  
> The other brother only wants to stitch you back together.  
> The sun shines down. It’s a beautiful day. Consider the hairpin turn.  
> Do not choose sides yet."

It kept him docile. 

Quiet, content, while it used his body as a crash test car. 

That's the hardest part to digest, you understand, because Billy was made of poison.

Everyone knows that.

He was dreaming--floating on a bard in the middle of the gentle sea with flowers in his hair. Soft, watery voices whispering _you have always been in this room, William._ _You grew up in this room where everything was wide eyed and free._

Billy wishes, now, that he had killed it. That the monster had swallowed something bad, that Billy had gotten his hands inside while it lay writhing in terror on the kitchen floor. 

It kept him docile.

Quiet, content, submissive, while Billy watched helpless from the sidelines. 

_I can't help when people are frightened of me,_ He wants to say. They always have been, you understand.

Billy was asleep in the ocean, under the waves, and then suddenly--he wasn't.

Suddenly he was the one swallowing poison while the monster stuck its hands inside his chest, removing things and putting them into plastic bags. Barren fields, blood on his shoes, hundreds of voices pleading for a mercy he had no power to deliver.

Billy gets hung up on that part of the story.

 _I learned a secret,_ He wants to say, _There is no without._

Billy tries to let it go.

\--

Everyday is a parade. But not the kind from Thanksgiving or Christmas or Valentines Day where the people are toasty warm on the street and bright-eyed with love. 

No, this is the Fourth of July and they are standing with their hands in the Earth. Billy rides the float up and down the street and the people run away in fear--one taffeta awning signals the beginning, the other the end. 

The End of All Things, he knows. Billy brings destruction. Billy is made of poison;

Everyone knows that.

He wanders the empty street long after the crowds have gone to the bar and monologues about love and loss and _the boy_. The name.

The _list_ of names, as long as a mile or as languid as a stream in the woods. Billy swims in the gulf and floats on his back. He stares into the sun for a clear mind. It doesn’t hurt.

Nothing hurts, anymore.

The crowds roar, the days soar.

Billy can’t remember the names but he remembers the skin; stretched out like a blanket between his legs, a picnic of his own making. Vanilla chai and black-cherries in milk. Smooth, perfect.

The names, the lists, and the things that were left behind. Billy chants the phrases in the mirror, savoring the strange way they feel on his tongue.

All words have a flavor. Cold spaghetti in a dirty dish, wheat bread, fruit too ripe to eat.

He can’t remember the boy.

He tries, but he can’t. All he knows is that he loves him.

Billy tries to let it go.

\--

She appeared for the first time like the mast of a sail, slowly and then all at once around the bend in the stream. Like a cloud or a thunderstorm, pervasive in the summer heat.

Billy had his hands in the mud. He was searching for something, for someone, though he couldn’t remember who, his violent hands peeling back spoonful's of soupy earth.

‘I know a secret,’ She said. 'The boy, this place was made in his image.’

'If I don't remember his face how can you expect me to remember yours,' He had said.

Billy ignored the woman at first, her white dress too harsh and vibrant in the midday sun. It hurt his eyes to look, they were wet, like the sea.

Eyes falling all around them like rain.

The boy, the name. Billy couldn’t remember.

‘Black cherries in chocolate, the ring around the moon,’ He wanted to say, ‘I hear you singing but I don’t know who you are.’

'This is a place for you to love him,’ She began.

Billy blinked at her, incredulous. ‘The words were written over each other, tripping all the way up the hill,’ he said. 'Nothing makes sense.'

‘I can help.’ Her voice was soft, delicate like a lone violin.

Billy felt he could trust her.

‘I feel a bit clearer now,’ He stared up, into the sun. ‘I thought I had a place in the world. I thought someone would follow me onto the train station platform, but I was wrong. The monster swallowed me up. Yes, let’s say the monster swallowed something bad and it killed him, and the something bad was me all along.’

Her eyes were droopy and soft as she listened. She reminded Billy of the boy. He wished he could remember the names.

'Yes. I can’t stop people from being afraid of me.’ Billy stated flatly. ‘They have a right, you understand?’

The woman waded gracefully into the stream, her cream colored dress pooling like the leaves of a lily pad all around her body. It was beautiful.

‘You called his name and you don’t remember.’ She said.

Billy kept yanking back the layers of the Earth only they weren’t layers anymore they were mountains. And valleys, and the shape of everything Billy needed them to be. 

He remembers brown eyes.

'The boy wasn’t listening,’ Billy said. His eyes fell like rain. ‘I can’t blame him. People, when they’re afraid of me, have a good reason.’ 

She twirled in the stream, dancing to a music yet unheard. 

'I heard another secret,’ The woman said, ‘He still cries out for you.’

Billy can’t let it go.

\--

They spend their days together. Or maybe they aren’t days but manifest as the song on a sheriff's radio. Maybe they’re bright and shining and wonderful.

She brushes his hair down over his eyes and asks, ‘Do you remember me?’ As if they were meeting in an aisle at the supermarket. As if she were his kindergarten teacher or his neighbor from down the street.

Billy stares at her for a minute, struck cold by her eyes all over again.

‘Your eyes are like muddy puddles.’ Billy says. He turns the page in his book; he’s always reading the same one. ‘Maybe you’re Stevie Nicks. I saw your video on T.V. once.’

She laughs. 

Billy has heard that laugh somewhere. Everywhere, as if it were a siren on a misty night or a hymnal sung in an empty church. He gasps when she takes the book from his hands.

‘Let’s say this time everyone has the best intentions.’

Billy sits, crosses his legs. Criss cross applesauce. He blinks; maybe she was his kindergarten teacher after all. ‘Okay,’ He says. ‘Yes, this time everyone has the best intentions.’

She nods. ‘And the person you love most in the world calls you one rainy night in March and says _I swallowed a bad thing and now I have moths flying out of my throat. You will never see me again.’_

‘Moths can’t live inside us, that’s not possible.’

She rolls her eyes. ‘So this time everyone has the best intentions and the person you love most in the world disappears like a cloud in the wind. Only, she didn’t mean to leave you. She had reserved a spot in the Gold Room, you understand? This reservation had been made and unmade many times in the past, and she didn't feel right cancelling her plans even though you gave her every reason to stay at home.’

Billy doesn’t understand the game anymore.

‘She reserved a spot in the bed next to hers for her golden haired boy. You were her good thing.’

Billy nods anyway, because this is how it goes. The woman says a lot of crazy things and Billy, does too.

Maybe they share a mind, a heartbeat, a thought.

She’s crying. ‘I meant to take you with me, Billy. I always meant to come back from the dead for you.’

\--

She teaches him about beginnings and endings and intermissions between lovers. 

The woman says she is his mother. 

Billy doesn’t remember the list or the names but he remembers _that,_ the feeling of a gentle touch on against his swollen lip, the band aid over his knee. He still finds himself calling into the storm for her, when the darkness becomes thick and he can’t remember the boy or his pretty brown eyes.

His mother is dead, though. So Billy doesn’t _believe_ it, but he has fun pretending.

‘Why don’t you eat your pancakes,’ She asks one morning while she pokes a finger at hers.

‘Don’t like to eat,’ Billy says, ‘It’s not on purpose, I’m just not hungry anymore.’

Somewhere out there, the boy is wasting away.

Billy doesn’t know how but he can _feel_ it, like the beginning of a migraine or the memory of a dream just out of reach. His mother smiles sadly at him.

‘He’s stopped eating too, you know.’

Billy does, but he can’t bring himself to talk about it. He pushes his plate aside and leans forward, chest pressed against the tiny kitchen table. ‘Tell me the story again.’ 

She sighs, like always. ‘You’ve heard this one before, minnow.’

‘I know,’ Billy tugs at a thread on his shirt, ‘I never grow tired of bright days.’

His mother sips on her coffee, the warm steam obscuring parts of her face as she begins again. ‘You drag Max down the hill toward the valley, the sun shines down and--’

‘It’s a beautiful day.’

She nods, clearly happy that he’s managed to memorize something from the story. Then; ‘Do you remember her?’

Billy clenches his eyes. Red hair and blue eyes, the same shade as his own. 

‘Maxine. She’s my sister, right?’

His mother nods. ‘Stepsister.’

‘Is there a difference?’ Billy asks lightly. ‘There isn’t. She calls out for me. _You_ said she calls--’

‘Yes,’ His mother's brown eyes slip closed as she sways back and forth to a music yet unheard. Her head ticks to the side. ‘Max, her song is. Different this time. More--’

‘More?’

‘Sweet. Syrupy.’ She stares at him. ‘Your sister is trying to pick up the pieces.’

He nods because he had expected that the names on the list would dig themselves out of the weeds and move on. Billy shouldn’t be upset, he can’t be upset; it was his decision to leave them there, half buried like that, in the soil.

He wishes he could turn this car around and go home.

Billy swallows. ‘What about the boy?’

She shakes her head, frowning softly. ‘The same.’

‘I can hear him, sometimes,’ He says. ‘Could you. Please, I see his face in the mist on the lake but I can’t _remember._ It hurts. It’s starting to eat away at hidden pieces.’

His mother leans forward, into the table. ‘You know I can’t do that.’

‘His name,’ Billy states. ‘I just want to remember his name. Put the hand to my mouth, the mouth to the wound that bleeds. I love him.’

‘Do you want to hear the story or not?’

And, Billy does. So he lets it go.

‘You drag Max into the valley. The sun shines down, it’s a beautiful day.’ She takes another sip of coffee, patient. ‘Apple picking in California, the crisp autumn morn'. You climb the old wooden ladder and hand down apple after apple until the bucket is full, overflowing. But then your feet touch the ground and you realize the apples have gone bad in the middle.’

‘Rotten,’ Billy whispers.

‘That’s right,’ His mother says. ‘Rotten. Suppose the boy has two halves, two pieces that make a whole. Only one of those faces is shown to the world, put on display like a painting in a museum only the critics tear it to shreds. He tries not to read the reviews but they feed his ego, so he props his feet on the coffee table and breaks his own heart. The boy lets these words become truths and he pimps them to his own benefit.'

'That's sad.'

His mother nods, because it is. 'There are always people who visit the museum. Who point at the painting on the wall and say _that one is my favorite,_ but because their words are not made immortal they hold less value. He lets the immortal ones eat a hole in his chest. One half of the boy has already gone bad in the middle. The other half is about to. The sun shines down, it’s a beautiful day.’

Billy shakes his head. ‘He isn’t rotten. He isn’t dirty.’

She smiles sadly. ‘Is that what you believe?'

'Yes.'

She takes a sip of coffee and stares out the window, into the sea.

'Then your words are made immortal.'

\--

Billy doesn’t write anymore. Maybe that’s just a side effect of the end of love; maybe it’s the absence of suffering, but Billy can’t pull the words out anymore.

He picks up a pen once or twice during his mother’s morning walk, intent on scribbling in the margins of blank pages until the list is complete. It doesn’t work; where the words used to drip out of his mind and onto the page like rainfall, now there is just silence. 

Billy tries to let it go.

Maybe he has run out of things to say.

\--

The first time the boy appeared Billy thought it was a dream. The kind that always begins with the golden sunrise and a million promises of ‘I will love you from the end of this life and into the next.’

His surfboard lay flat across his thighs like the surface of a glacier or the endless stretch of land between home and barren fields. He ran his fingertips around the curve of the thing, spreading wax and buffing it out again until the reflection of streetlamps threw shadows against his skin.

A boy with beautiful brown eyes. 

Sad eyes, the kind that take you apart and put you together again. The kind that you fight for. He had a purple bruise flowering along his cheekbone and tears on his face and Billy wanted to smear the color, smooth it out until lay against his skin like a blanket.

_Billy goat, such a lonely boy._

The basketball, the freshly cut grass. Billy spreads the wax and sorts through the names, the list, the box in the garage full of shirts he outgrew last summer.

From across the sand he can hear his mother singing her favorite song. Billy closes his eyes, loses himself in the music.

_You know I'd rather be alone than be without you, don't you know..._

Billy has run out of things to say, but he can sing, he can make sense of the world.

“Billy?” A voice says. He looks up into a pair of pretty brown eyes. 

_Steve._

\--

‘He was here,’ Billy says that night over dinner. ‘The boy on the bridge, the one under the streetlamp.’ 

She pokes at her pork tenderloin, ‘So you remember his name, then.’

‘Steve,’ He says. All words have a flavor, this one tastes like strawberry shortcake. ‘Why didn’t you tell me I could bring him here?’

‘Because you can't.’ She whispers. ‘He will come when he hears your voice but you can’t control how or when it happens. Our song is like the thrum of a stereo under the floorboards, calling from three houses away. Steve will appear out of blind curiosity but this isn’t his kingdom, it’s yours.’

Billy takes a bite of food. Needs more salt.

‘If you knew his name the whole time why didn’t you say anything.’

‘It wasn't safe.'

'Don't lie, mother.' He tries to stop his voice from shaking. Billy is desperate for comfort, for a glass of cool water. 'We don't lie to each other. Isn't that one of the commandments that Moses left on the hill?'

She tries to reach for his hand but he shrinks away.

Through the window he can hear the crash of the waves on the shore, the distant sound of tears dripping into a bucket.

'Maybe I like having you by me,' She avoids his eyes. 'Maybe this is the bed that I reserved next to mine in the Gold Room and maybe I don't want you to swim into the ocean and disappear again.'

He can't believe her. 

He can't believe any of it. 'I want to go home.' He says.

‘You are _here_ now, Billy.’

‘I made this place. For him, so I could love him,’ Billy snarls. ‘Isn’t that what you told me?’

‘Make it into the shape of whatever you need, love.’

Her eyes are kind.

Billy tries to let it go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title of this chapter comes from the novel by Shirley Jackson.


	13. Lone and Level Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (or) when the rain washes you clean, you'll know

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Here we are at the place where I get to beg for it. Where I get to say 'please, just for one night will you lay down next to me, we can leave our clothes on, we can stay buttoned up?' But we both know how it goes--I say, 'I want you inside me,' and you hold my head underwater.  
> I say, 'I want you inside me,' and you split me open with a knife.  
> I'm battling monsters. I'm pulling you out of the burning buildings and you say, 'I'll give you everything,'  
> But you never come through."

The spot in the street. 

The lamps like stepping stones into the past--Steve tears into the driveway, headlights throwing wonky shadows across the deserted concrete. He cuts the engine with shaky fingers and stares out the window, into the rain. 

The air smells fertile when he breathes in through his nose. Soggy Earth and rotten leaves, it reminds him of autumn. Of underground tunnels and the Byer's driveway and Christmas lights hammered into slated walls. The rain pounds against the glass and Steve tries to make sense of the world. 

Anytime he feels like he’s finally getting a handle on Hawkins’ particular brand of weirdness the situation changes again. Gets more fucked up, even when it seems impossible, and Steve is left in the weeds scrambling for purchase.

He always gets there eventually. Always pulls himself up by his bootstraps and decides to just _accept it._ Figure it out, join forces, save the world.

This time is different. This time he wants to run away from the feeling.

Barb, the basement library, the memory loss. 

It took him a while to wrap his head around the other shit. The aliens and the superpowers and, eventually, the interdimensional space-demons. 

Barbra in the basement with shit in her hair is different. Leaves his legs heavy and his heart shuttering in his chest.

It’s too close to home. Steve swallows against the urge to stop digging, to leave well enough alone, but. 

Billy.

Steve can’t stop his fingers from shaking against the wheel. Clairvoyance lands somewhere between demonic possession and lunacy in his mind and he doesn’t understand _why_ Billy chose that word. 

Is it meant for Steve or Billy?

Both or neither? He isn’t sure. 

Steve has never seen a ghost before. The whole situation, the dreams and the cassette tapes and even the handprints have lived separately in his head. Like they’re not the same thing even though...they _are._

As many horror films as he’s seen, as many times as he’s thought about what it could be like to see a spirit or whatever, he never thought it would be so mundane.

Almost boring as the solid figure steps into the light. Steve thinks with a chuckle that if he hadn't known Barb he would have thought she was alive.

She had been so solid, so _real_ in the dimly lit basement _._ It was a far cry from what he had always imagined.

Distant from the mental images of Casper and the Ghostbusters, spectral goo inching a little too close to human bodies and July Fourth for Steve’s taste. He’s tried to avoid the possibility that life continues after death.

The aliens were enough, alright?

Tonight changes that around. Makes it impossible to ignore that, as much as he’s been through, as much as he's tried to forget the unpleasantness and move on; it's commonplace in Steve’s life. Barbara Holland was standing five feet away from him looking like hell itself, wet with mud and caked with shit and disease and.

He never would have thought it was possible, that he could be a key piece in something so huge. So important. Steve has been tossed into the role of the protagonist.

It fucking sucks.

In so many ways Steve has never stopped reliving that night in the tunnels. 

After tearing his eyes away from the streetlamp Steve leaf's unsteadily through _The 1920 Book of Clairvoyance,_ to latch onto anything important.

The definition sets his world askew. 

_A person who can see holographic images in their mind’s eye or outside of their body. These images can be symbols, scenes, or people. Usually, they represent a psychic truth._

Steve winces as the words slip around the page.

So, okay. 

Maybe _not_ a far cry from handprints and wonky cassette tapes and flickering street lamps. Steve scrubs at his eyelids. 

This is when his mother would inevitably pet his hair down over his eyes and fix him a mug of hot chocolate. Send him to bed to work off whatever sickness has ravaged his already deteriorating mind.

His mother isn’t here though. No one is. 

Steve is alone.

So, he sticks all four books under his windbreaker and runs to the front door, shoes squeaking loudly on the tile in the foyer when the door slams shut behind him. 

It’s so quiet that the bones of the house groan under his weight.

He hates coming home to a dark house. An empty house, so the first thing he does is turn on every light on the lower level. Ups the heat in an attempt to unthaw his fingers.

He shuffles through the house to the kitchen and fills a pot with water. Turns on the stove, cracks a beer, attempts to uphold his end of the bargain. Even if he isn’t keen on the idea of putting the gang in danger he can make sure he’s eating enough.

At least so they don’t worry.

Steve could call Dustin. 

Order pizza, watch a movie, let the kid crash on the loveseat across from the chase lounge so when Steve wakes up in the middle of the night he isn’t alone, for once. Through the years he’s learned that Henderson’s presence is like salve on a fresh burn, but.

One look at that dorky face and he’ll spill. 

Out the window the rain falls, twinkling like stars under the light of the lamps. Tiny fists thundering against the roof, providing a soundtrack for the night. It’s beautiful, really, as he sips on his beer. 

How many hours has he sat by this window, staring into the street as if it could take him into the past?

How many times has he imagined things that weren’t there.

How many times could he have let go.

Steve’s shoulders itch at the new discovery, under the weight of the new word; _clairvoyance._ He feels heavy and light all at the same time and wonders if it would really be so bad, confiding in Henderson. Wouldn’t be the first time--would hardly be the last.

The water on the stove comes to a boil and Steve dumps in a packet of mac and cheese.

He doesn’t know what to do with the words. How to process the information and, like, crack the case. It makes him feel pathetic as he stirs the noodles.

Steve feels vastly underqualified. Unprepared for the sky to fall because, honestly, he’s never been one to lead. He tries, though. Steve tries his best to work through it as the wind picks up and blows sleeting rain against the window.

Dustin would know what to do.

Steve has made the lists and checked them twice like some sort of doomsday Santa Claus but. 

The receiver is in his hand before he registers the movement. Dustin’s phone number tumbles from his brain to his fingertips as a clap of thunder makes it feel like he’s caught in a slasher fic. Steve waits as the phone rings and tries to stop his heart from racing.

So goddamn jumpy, these days.

He can practically hear Billy’s chuckle in the space next to him. 

“Hello?” Dustin sounds like he’s eating. Probably is.

“What are you doing tonight, dork?”

“Steve, hey,” He shouts. “Homework, mostly. Why, what’s up?”

On the street the lampposts flicker down the line. “Oh. Uh, nothing just.” Another clap of thunder. Steve wraps the phone cord around his hand. “Wanted to watch a movie or something.”

He crosses his arms to ward off the phantom chill of the wind against the walls. The rain falls harder, if that’s even possible, and Steve watches as the trees bend to and fro on the deserted gravel road. 

“Sure, I could be there in ten minutes.” Dustin says around the crunch of a chip.

Steve blinks. “Are you kidding me?” He watches the lamps. The rain catching like searchlights in the darkness. Thinks he sees something move just beyond the glow of it, lurking in the shadows.

Steve shakes his head. “No, I’ll uh. I’ll pick you up, I don’t want you biking in this storm.”

“What storm?”

“You’re joking, right?” He leans against the wall. “The rain? It’s been at it all day, I--”

Someone’s sitting under the streetlamp. 

Blond curls, dirty wife beater. He’s crying. Steve nearly drops the phone. 

“It’s...not raining.” Dustin sounds more alert now, like he’s worried about something. “Look, are you okay? You sound--”

“I’m fine.” Steve whispers. His voice sounds eerily calm, makes the hairs on the back of his own neck rise. Billy’s crying under the streetlamp. Steve feels his feet carry him forward.

“I feel a bit clearer now, um. Thanks, Dusty.” He moves to hang up the phone.

“Hey, wait. I’m getting my shoes on, I’ll,” Henderson’s panicking. Steve can hear it in his voice but all he can focus on is the rain. The lights, the boy.

Billy. Steve watches as he stands and turns toward the house, blue eyes like lit flames in the darkness. All around him the rain is suspended in the air, frozen in time and space.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes, okay, Steve? Call Robin. I want you to--”

“You know what, Dusty, I don’t.” He blinks away tears. “I don’t really feel like a movie anymore, um. Call you tomorrow, alright?”

“Steve, I don’t--”

“Bye, now.” He hangs up the phone just as the power goes out. 

Even through the mist he can see Billy’s shoulders rising and falling with every breath, the fog cloaking his shivering body. Steve shuffles to the window, pulling the curtains back even farther to peer into the night. 

Billy stands like a statue. Immovable, intense, waiting. 

Steve feels like he’s been split right down the middle as all three of his brain cells hash it out. He can hear the rain tapping against the roof but it still hangs in the air like that, frozen as Billy watches from the pool of light.

“Fuck,” Steve says bluntly. “Fucking _shit.”_

The handle to the front door feels like ice against his palm. He lets out a shuddery breath and flings the thing open, stepping into the soggy night air. 

“Billy?” The driveway feels like the floor of a bounce house as Steve sloshes through rain-water. “Bill, what are you--”

“I thought death was the end, but I was wrong.”

Steve stops dead in his tracks. Billy tilts his head up, toward the light. When he speaks again his voice sounds like summer.

Like sun kissed skin and desperate heat. 

It snaps in the air around them like fireworks. “My mother said she saved a place for me in the room. The gold room, the one where everyone finally gets what they want, and I thought.” Billy shakes his head. “I thought death was the end.”

Steve stares at him, too frightened to move.

“What did you mean when you sent Barbra to me?” He asks. The water laps against his knees, Steve wonder's distantly how it came to this. “The word. _Clairvoyant_ , what did--”

Light, insufferable and blinding cuts their conversation short. 

Steve clenches his eyes against the clap of thunder, the lightning that paints the world in stark colors. When he opens them again he’s standing on the beach.

Wet nike’s, sand between his toes.

Billy is gone. Steve spins in place, taking in the surroundings of the familiar shore. In the distance he can hear someone singing. Someone else washing the dishes in a worn metal sink.

Another person is crying, but Steve thinks that might be himself. 

“He called your name before he went.”

Steve whirls to find her standing in the ocean, the water pooling the white dress up around her waist. She closes her eyes and sways gently, arms stretched above her head.

He blinks. “Where’s Billy?”

“Your song is different. This time, Steve, it’s. Acidic with determination.” When the woman finally opens her eyes again she smiles at him softly, sweetly. “You’re nearly there.”

Steve swallows against the anger in his stomach. “I can’t do this anymore, alright? The fucking riddles and the visitations and the--”

“You miss him.”

“Yes.” Steve spits. “Yes, I. Of course I do, but--”

The woman starts swaying again. “This is where he is now. Stuck, wandering. You bring him comfort, Steven. Happiness.” She hums a song he’s heard somewhere before. “I know this is difficult for you but leave the radio on. He will keep walking toward the sound of your voice.”

Steve scrubs a hand across his face, bristling. “What does that _mean,_ I don’t understand.”

The rain begins to fall again, the waves lapping against the shore. He can feel himself slipping away. 

“Wait,” Steve calls, “I’m not. I don’t understand.”

“You’re nearly there,” The woman calls through the rain. “Keep pushing.”

\--

Somebody’s pouring water on his face.

Cold water, it burns his skin. Steve frowns against it, the pull out of sleep, but then there’s a hand on his shoulder and a voice in his ear and it’s annoying. 

Steve opens his eyes.

Dustin, crouched on the dry ground next to him, sighs in relief. “Jesus _Christ,_ Steve I thought you were dead. I mean you were screaming your head off when I got here, like _really_ screaming, and you were laying in the middle of the street.” There are fingers in his hair, worrying over him. “I thought maybe you got hit by a car or something, you fucking idiot, _Jesus--”_

“Alright, shut up.” Steve mumbles. He winces again as those fingers tug through his hair. “Stop, I’m. I’m up, okay?”

Steve hikes himself into a sitting position and smacks Dustin’s hands away from his head. They’re squatting on his front lawn under a sky full of stars. The breeze tickles the sweat on Steve’s neck as he looks around through squinted eyes.

His head is throbbing. He wants to sleep.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asks blearily.

Dustin shrugs. “Was worried about you, but. Kinda used to it by now.”

And just like that, Steve feels like the biggest asshole on Earth. He rubs listlessly at the back of his neck and tries to look appreciative. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Dustin says. Steve watches as he drags a water bottle from his backpack. Henderson unscrews the cap and holds it out, clearly a peace offering. “Here. Drink.”

Steve does.

The cold water feels nice on his throat. Dustin keeps staring at him, eyebrows pulled together, bottom lip caught between his teeth. If he keeps worrying at it like that the thing will start to bleed, Steve knows.

He opens his mouth to say something when Henderson cuts him off.

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“Just, slowly losing my mind,” Steve polishes off the rest of Dustin’s water and shrugs. “Feel like I’m alone, you know?”

Henderson shifts on the ground next to him, getting comfortable. “You aren’t,” He says simply. Like Steve thinking otherwise is the dumbest thing on Earth. “I’m always gonna be here for you, you absolute fuck--”

“Hey, watch it Henderson, Jesus.” Steve glares sideways at him. “Look, I know. You guys are always there but.”

“But _what?_ You’ve been acting like.” Dustin shakes his head. “I dunno, like you’re on a secret mission and you’re doing a terrible job solving the puzzle but your big dumb pride refuses to let you ask for help.”

“Wow, that’s really just a guess?” Steve tries for humor.

It doesn’t work. Dustin stares at him, convinced. “Is this about Billy?” 

Before he can stop himself Steve tries to brush it off. A thousand excuses bubble to the surface; _hey man I don’t want to talk about this_ and _let’s just drop it_ eject and die in the air as Dustin grabs at his arm.

“When have I ever pried, Steve.” 

He winces. “What are you--”

“When the mind flayer got Billy and you climbed onto him and tried to crawl under his skin. When you started saying you loved the guy when none of us even--” Henderson takes a deep breath. “You never even brought him up before Starcourt and then suddenly he was the most important thing in the world.”

“Not suddenly.” Steve says, voice far away. “I was just too chicken to admit it, before.”

Dustin either doesn’t hear him or doesn’t care. 

“That’s not the point. We’re supposed to be friends, Steve. _Best_ friends, we’re brothers and you never even said anything about Billy.”

Steve feels tears burning at the back of his skull. “Look, Dusty, I’m sorry--”

“Don’t apologize.” Dustin says gently. Firmly. “I told everyone it wasn’t our business, that you’d come to us when you were ready but I’m calling Martial Law. Is this about Billy.”

The words come tumbling out.

“Yes. Okay, _yeah,_ weird shit’s been happening, what more do you want me to say?” Steve winces at the venom in his own voice.

Dustin dishes it right back, unfazed. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Steve shrugs. “Didn’t seem important at the time--”

“ _Important?”_ Henderson smacks his arm again, harder this time. Actually stings a little. “Steve, anything that has to do with the Mind Flayer and the Upside Down is priority _one_ for our Party. Why didn’t you just--”

“Because I can’t lose anyone else!”

The words hang in the air between them, spinning like loose stars. 

Steve feels like an idiot, alright? A selfish, violent idiot but those words make his intent clear. Crystal clear, as tears swamp his vision again. 

It may have been fucked up to keep secrets, but.

He’s the babysitter. It’s his job to keep his shithead’s safe.

“We lost Billy and Hopper. _Fuck,_ Dustin, we almost lost El. I almost died down there in that sterile fucking basement, and I just.” He has to stop. The words don’t come.

Dustin waits as Steve works through something in his head.

Finally; “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you guys because of me, so.” Steve wipes the tears away clumsily with the back of his hand. “Yeah. I wanted to be sure.”

Dustin is quiet for so long that Steve thinks maybe he lost him somewhere between the spaces in his grief. 

Eventually, his friend sighs. “And what did you discover?”

Steve feels the wind on his face, the warm presence of Dustin’s hand on his arm and he understands what has to be done. 

“I need your help,” Steve says. “Apparently, death isn’t the end.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last chapter update for a while, so thank you for reading.  
> If you've managed to stick around for this long I appreciate the hell out of you.

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me on social media?? Idk.
> 
> twitter: @nervoussis  
> tumblr: @passivenovember


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